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THE 



NEGRO IN MARYLAND 



A Study of the Institution of Slavery 



Bv JEFFREY R. BRACKETT, Ph d 



BALTIMORE 

1889 



.fA3"B7 



CoPYRiGHT, 18S9, BY N. Murray. 



JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS. 
HALTIMORE. 






CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE. 

I. — Introduction, - 1 

II. — Indians and White Servants, 11 

III.— Slaves, 26 

IV. — Manumission, 148 

V. — The Free Negro, - - 175 



THE NEGRO IN MARYLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 



We are not called on, happily, to bring up from our past 
politics those questions of slavery over which so many lances 
were broken — until arguments were ended by the sword. 
The object of this study is simply to trace, as clearly as 
possible, the growth of African slavery, as an institution, in 
Maryland.^ 

Nor will it be necessary to study the institution of slavery 



^A residence of several years in Maryland has not alone fixed this limited 
field of inquiry. It is true, no doubt, that the lot of the slaves in Maryland 
was, as a rule, much better than that of those on the large plantations in 
the thinly settled portions of the Southern States. Thus, for instance, the 
system of special magistrates' courts, for trial of slaves for serious offences, 
was not known in Maryland. But Maryland was settled early; its slave 
code was rigorous ; becoming a Border State, its slave property became 
less secure ; the number of slaves remained large, while the free blacks 
became more numerous than in any other slave State ; and earnest efforts 
were made for colonization. A study of the growth of slavery in detail, 
with reference to these conditions, may be of more value to the student, 
to-day, than a more general, and necessarily less accurate, study in a wider 
field, or one directed more to the severities to which slavery made the blacks 
liable — which are already well known. 

Any work of such a nature must be very imperfect. The writer can 
give only what he has gathered, and asks any person who may be interested 
in the subject, to communicate to him any further facts. 

Baltimore, Md., 1889. 



2 The Negro in Maryland. 

among the ancients, for the presumption is that the planters 
on the Chesapeake acted by their own impulses and for their 
own interests, with little knowledge of, or regard to, what 
other men had done, two thousand years before. But to begin 
with the settlement of Maryland, without noticing the ideas of 
the age concerning slavery — ideas which the settlers brought 
with them — would be as unfair as to begin a history of the 
United States without notice of the Thirteen Colonies. 

The slavery of antiquity, the right to hold a person for 
debt, or as a captive taken in war, was based on no strict 
race or religious grounds. Romans enslaved captive Germans, 
as Germans, afterwards, in their turn, enslaved Romans. But 
this slavery died out in Western Europe early in the Middle 
Ages; and Christians ceased to enslave Christian captives. 
The semi-servile condition of villeinage which grew up at 
that time, declined quickly with the decline of the feudal 
system, long before the settlement of America. ^ It is signifi- 
cant, that just at the time when Columbus turned to the court 
of Spain, to become the discoverer of America, Ferdinand of 
Arragon had succeeded with some difficulty in bringing cer- 



^ Villeinage varied somewhat in different parts of Europe, and has sur- 
vived in some countries almost to our own day. In general, to all others 
but his lord, the serf was as a freeman. In England, villeinage died out 
early, the Peasants' Wars of the fourteenth century giving the death blow. 
The last case, we are told, in which it was pleaded in the courts was in 
1618. That class distinctions may have accustomed men easily to the 
existence of any form of servitude is worthy of consideration, but villeinage 
cannot be said to have had any vital inliuence on the rise of African slavery. 
The only case in which we find mention, in the early records of ^Maryland, 
of the laws or customs of England on villeinage, as affecting slavery, is the 
answer of Lord Baltimore to the Lords of Trade, in 1678 (Md. Arch.,V., 267), 
on the subject of conversion of the blacks. A law was made, he says, to 
encourage baptism of slaves, "by which it was and is declared That as in 
former times The IJaptizeing of Villaynes in England was not taken by the 
Lawe of England To be a Manumission or Infranchiseing of the Vil- 
laynes Koe neither shall it be in this Provynce as to Negroes or Mulattoes," 
&c. See cliapter on Slaves. The Court of Appeals declared, afterwards, 
that slavery and vilU'inage were ciitirclv different. 



Introduction. 3 

tain nobles to grant freedom to their serfs, of European race 
and Christian faith, and was also pushing vigorously the 
conquest of Grenada, by which thousands of Saracens were 
scattered as slaves in Southern Europe. 

Christians had ceased the enslavement of Christian captives, 
as a rule ; but the custom of ransom, of which we read in the 
chronicles, was a survival of slavery. The beaten warrior 
became subject to the terms of the victor. At the battle of 
Poitiers, in 1356, the English — so the old chronicler Frois- 
sart tells us — had French prisoners twice as many in number 
as themselves, and deemed it advisable to ransom them on the 
spot. Many were set at liberty and others kept ; " for who- 
soever made any prisoners, they were solely at his disposal, 
to ransom or not, as he pleased." Several of the English 
archers had four or six prisoners, and a number of those who 
could give no ransom were put to death. One Sir Edward 
de Roucy felled to the ground an English knight who was 
following him from the field. Dismounting and placing his 
lance on the Englishman's breast, he called on him to sur- 
render under penalty of death, as his prisoner, rescued or not. 
The defeated knight surrendered, accompanied Sir Edward, 
and afterwards ransomed himself. At the battle of Chevy 
Chace, in 1388, one Sir Matthew Redman surrendered to a 
Scotch knight. " Rescued or not?" cried the Scot. " I con- 
sent," answered Sir Matthew, "you will take good care of 
me ? " " That I will," said the Scot. Then Sir Matlhew, 
putting up his sword, said ; *' now, what do you require of 
me, for I am your prisoner by fair conquest ? " "And what 
is it you would wish me to do," replied the Scot. " I should 
like," said Sir Matthew, " to return to Newcastle ; and, within 
fifteen days, I will come to you in any part of Scotland you 
shall appoint." "I agree," said his captor, "on your pledging 
yourself, that within three weeks you be in Edinburgh ; and 
wherever you may go, you acknowledge yourself as my 
prisoner." So they parted, and in a few moments, the Scot 
himself was captured by the Bishop of Durham. He philo- 



4 The Negro in Maryland. 

sophically exclaimed : " I have made a prisoner, and am now 
one myself: such is the chance of war."^ In 1441, Charles 
VII. of France brought a number of English prisoners to 
Paris. After suffering shocking treatment, those who could 
not pay their ransom, by far the largest number, were bound 
hand and foot, and thrown into the Seine. Not till the sev- 
enteenth century were agreements entered into by the nations 
of Europe for the regulation and exchange of prisoners.^ 

But it was in Christ only that all men were brethren. The 
captive heathen or infidel became usually the slave of his 
Christian conqueror. It was due chiefly to the conquest of 
the Spaniards over the Moors and to the rising trade of the 
Spaniards and Portuguese with Africa, that there grew up for 
Europe a new form of chattel slavery. And if the zeal of 
the earlier church had helped the fall of the old slavery, the 
zeal and bigotry of good churchmen of this age certainly had 
a part, conscious or unconscious, in tlie rise of the new. 
"Whole droves of slaves," wrote Bodin, in 1576, "are sold 
and that openly in all parts of Portugal, as if they were 
beasts."^ By the trade with Africa, negro slaves wore brought, 
to a limited extent, to Portugal and Spain. Prince Henry 
of Portugal, in 1442, insisted that negroes should be brought 
there; " for whatever number he should get, he would gain 
souls, because they might be converted to the faith, which 
could not be managed with the Moors."* "And certainly," 
adds the old chronicler, " his thought was not vain, for as 
soon as they had knowledge of our language, they readily 
became Christians." It is not necessary to dwell on the 
extreme zeal of the Church in that age — so well seen in the 
Inquisition. " It was the received opinion," says Prescott, 



» Froissart, Johnes' Trans., Vol. I, 219, &c. ; II, 373. 
"^ For mucli of interest on this subject see Ward's Inquiry into the Law 
of Nations (R. Ward, London, 1795). 

^ Coinmonweale, Knolles' Translation, p. 43. 

*The Conquerors of The New World: Sir A. Helps, pp. 28, 36. 



Introduction. 5 

" among good Catholics of that period, that heathen and bar- 
barous nations were placed by the circumstance of their infi- 
delity without the pale both of spiritual and civil rights." ^ 

By the discovery of America, Europeans met a people, the 
Indians, not akin to them in race or religion. Columbus, in 
his diary, speaks thus of Ferdinand and Isabella : " Your 
highnesses as Catholic Christians and princes, lovers and 
furtherers of the Christian faith, and enemies of the sect of 
Mahomet, and of all idolatries and heresies, thought to send 
me, Christopher Columbus, to the aforesaid provinces of India 
to see the aforesaid princes, the cities and lands, and the dis- 
position of them and of everything about them, and the way 
that should be taken to convert them to the sacred faith," ^ 
It is true, indeed, that the conversion of the natives was 
steadfastly enjoined by the sovereigns, and carried out by cer- 
tain of their subjects. But in the treatment of the Indians 
by the Spaniards we see plainly the spirit of the times. A 
number of Indian slaves were soon sent to Spain, some of 
them by Columbus. Isabella ordered back those who had 
not been taken in just war. The Spaniards were little suited 
to work the mines in the Indies. They had gone out expect- 
ing largely to pick up precious metals ; they found by expe- 
rience that riches were to be won only by toil. The natives 
were soon impressed into their service. The matter was 
carried to Spain, and the right to enslave the unoifending 
heathen was debated there by learned men. It was finally 
determined that a qualified servitude would be beneficial to 
both Spaniard and Indian ; the former might the better work 
his plantation or his mine, the latter might gain from the 
religious and social influences of his employer. The rights 



1 Ferdinand and. Isabella, Part II, ch. 8. The Mahometans enslaved 
captives of another faith ; Capt. John Smith was a slave among the Turks. 
Europe felt the converse working of her old rule, later, when the Barbary 
States exacted tribute, as ransoms. 

2 The Conquerors of The New World, p. 102. 



6 The Negro in Maryland. 

thus granted were terribly abused ; in a few years, from over- 
work and ill-treatment, the numerous populations, of men 
unaccustomed to toil, had dwindled away. At first, the cap- 
ture of cannibal Indians had been forbidden, but as they 
persisted in idolatry, they too were enslaved.^ 

At the very beginning of the sixteenth century, permission 
had been given to carry to the Indies such negro slaves as 
had been " born in the power of Christians " — that is, negroes 
from Southern Europe. The rapid decrease of the Indians, 
and the cruelties practised on them, had roused a number of 
zealous friends to them, among the Spaniards. About 1511, 
says the chronicler Herrera, " the King of Spain issued fresh 
Orders for promoting the Conversion of the Indians, and 
their being well instructed in the Christian Religion. Nor 
did he take less care of the civil Government, directing among 
other things, that those People should not be oppressed, and 
that for easing of them, numbers of blacks should be carry^d 



^A proclamation Avas addressed to the Indians not under the Spanish 
rule. They were called on to acknowledge the grant of the new world by 
the Pope to the Crown — a grant made in certain writings which they might 
see if they wished. They were to acknowledge the Churcli, the Crown, 
and to receive the ministration of the priests. Due time was given them 
to consider this. If they came under the Spanish rule, His Majesty would 
greet them with all love and affection and leave them their wives and 
children free, and give them many privileges and exemptions. But if they 
did not, "by the help of God I will enter with power into your land," 
reads the threat, " and will subdue you, and will take your wives and chil- 
dren and make slaves of them, and sell them as such, and take all your 
goods and do all the mischief I can, as to vassals that do not obey and will 
not receive their Lord, and I protest that all the deatli and destruction 
which may come from this is your fault, and not liis Majesty's or mine or 
that of my men." And we are told in the old chronicle, how the Spaniards 
would Konietiines lialt in the dark before an Indian village, and the com- 
mander would read tliis to his men and the trees of tlie forest, as a prelude 
to pillage and slaughter. An oflicer was afterward cmi)loyed by the King 
to rej)ort which of the Indians were cannibals, " barbarous People, ICnemies 
to ("liristiaus, and Man Eaters." Certain ones could not be determined, 
but it wii-s declared that those named as cannibals might be attacked, taken, 
and sold as slaves. (Herrera, Stevens' Trans., I, 1, 14; II, 8, G). 



Introduction. 7 

over to work in the Mines, because one of them (i. e. one 
negro slave) did more than four of the Natives." ^ The pro- 
duction of sugar increased the desire for negroes. Soon, with 
the entire sympathy of the court and by the advice of those 
friendly to the Indians, negroes were extensively introduced. 
The service of Indians was thus supplanted by African slaves. 

With the demand for negro labor in the New World, 
the slave trade increased, and soon extended from the Portu- 
guese and Spaniards to the Dutch and English. "Although 
servitude in these latter times was left off," wrote Bodin in 
1576, "for about three or four hundred years, yet is it now 
again approved, by the great agreement and consent of almost 
all nations." 

The early treatises on war reflect plainly, no doubt, the 
spirit of the times. The Spaniard Victoria, professor at 
Salamanca, writes, a few years before Bodin, that in wars 
between Christians — although, by the law of nature, warriors 
who surrender or are captured might be slain — the usage and 
custom of war, which had become a part of the law of nations, 
had ordered that prisoners might be redeemed by ransom. 
But this mitigation of the extreme rights of war was not 
applicable to infidels. It was not lawful to kill or carry into 
captivity innocent persons, and women and children were 
presumed to be innocent, even in wars with the Turks ; but 
in a war against pagans, which might be said to be perpetual 
and without hope of obtaining satisfaction, doubtless the 
women and children captured from the Saracens could be 
detained as slaves.^ So Ayala, the Judge Advocate of the 
Spanish army in the Netherlands, says in his Treatise on 
War, in 1581, that an ancient and laudable custom had sub- 
stituted for enslavement the practice of ransoming prisoners 
of war ; but that the older usage still existed between Chris- 
tians and such infidel nations as Turks and Saracens.^ 



^Herrera, Stevens' Trans., I, 9, 3. 

^ Wheaton's Law of Nations, Introduction. 



8 The Negro in Maryland. 

Albericus Gentilis, called from the continent in 1587 to be 
professor of civil law at Oxford, wrote that there was no 
slavery in wars of Christians, for such were civil wars, as all 
men were brothers in Christ. I do not hesitate, he adds, to 
say that the law of slavery is just, for it is the agreement of 
the law of nations. ^ Grotius, the historiographer of Holland, 
states in his famous work on the Rights of War and Peace, 
published in 1625, that even among Christians the custom 
still continued of keeping captives till their ransom was paid 
— it being generally agreed that Christian prisoners taken in 
war were not to be " made Slaves, so as to sell them or force 
them to hard Labours, or to such Miseries as are common to 
Slaves." And what Christians, he adds, in this case observe 
among themselves, the Mahometans likewise do among them- 
selves.^ Bynkershoek, an advocate and judge at the Hague, 
stated in his Public Law, in 1737, that prisoners were often 
released even without ransom. As slavery had fallen entirely 
into disuse among Christians, he says, " we do not inflict it 
upon our prisoners. We may however, if we please, and 
indeed we do sometimes still exercise that right upon those 
who enforce it against us. Therefore the Dutch are in the 
habit of selling to the Spanish as slaves, the Algerians, Tuni- 
sians and Tripolitans, whom they take prisoners in the Atlan- 
tic or in the Mediterranean ; for the Dutch themselves have 
no slaves, except in Asia, Africa and America."^ 



' Thomas Aquinas pleases me, says Gentilis, in saying that slavery is 
natural ; not, indeed, according to first intentions by which we have all 
been created free, but from second intention, since nature allowed delin- 
quents to be punished. (Albericus Gentilis: De Jure Belli, Holland's Ed., 
ch. IX, p. 314, &c.) 

^ The right to enslave captives, says Grotius, taken in solemn war, was 
granted by the Law of nations for no otlier reason, tlian that the captors 
might be tempted to forbear the rigor allowed tliem, of killing their pris- 
oners either in, or after, the fight. Among Christians it was generally 
agreed that prisoners were not to be enslaved, and that with reason, " for 
they arc, or should be, better instructed by the great liecomniender of 
every act of ciiarity." (Grotius: De Jure Belli, Barbeyrac's Trans.) 

^ Bynkershoek : Quaes. Juris. Pub., Du I'onceau's Trans., Book I, ch. 3. 



Introduction. 9 

While scholars were writing thus in their studies, the 
African trade was increasing. From time immemorial, in- 
deed, the Africans, in their inter-tribal warfare, had been 
accustomed to enslave their prisoners ; but the native traders 
must have caught from the Europeans something of the greed 
for riches that so strongly marked that age. It was an age 
of great activity and discovery. Marvellous reports came to 
Europe of the riches of the New World. In Florida, the 
Spaniards sought for the fountain of youth. Theatre-goers 
in London, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, heard 
that gold was to be had for the picking up, in America. 
" Why man," says one fellow, " all their dripping-pans are 
pure golde ... all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde; 
and for rubies and diamonds, they goes forth in holy-days, and 
gather 'hem by the sea-shore." ^ An old Spanish historian — 
who softens, says Prescott, the excesses of his countrymen — 
tells us of an Indian chief of Cuba, who, having carefully 
watched the Spaniards in the neighboring islands, and hearing 
that they were coming to Cuba to settle, called together his 
people. And putting them in mind of their many sufferings 
at the hands of the Spaniards, he told them that the Spaniards 
acted for a great and beloved lord, whom he would show 
them. Then he took from a little palm-tree basket a lump 



In 1661 and 1664, the States-General ordered their admiral to sell as slaves 
all the pirates he might take. 

Pufendorf says, in 1672, that the ownership of acquisitions by capture in 
war was then a subject of dispute. "The idea that captives in war are 
slaves," wrote John Adams to Granville Sharp, the English philanthropist, 
in 1786, " is the foundation of the misfortunes of the negroes. This prin- 
ciple is honored and admitted by all the powers of Europe, who pay tributes 
to the States of Barbary." Memoirs of Sharp, I, 374. 

^Marston's Eastward Ho; 1605. The excesses of the Spaniards were, 
doubtless, far greater than those of the English, who cannot, however, in 
their part in the slave-trade, be exonerated from avarice. 

Sir Henry Maine says, in his Ancient Law, ch. V, " The simple wish to 
use the bodily powers of another person as a means of ministering to one's 
own ease or pleasure is doubtless the foundation of Slavery, and as old as 
human nature." 



10 The Negro in Maryland. 

of gold, saying, this is the lord of the Spaniards. Then they 
danced around the basket, and " when they were spent with 
Singing and Dancing before the little Basket of God," he 
bade them not keep " the Lord of the Christians in any Place 
whatsoever, for tho' he were in their Bowels, they would 
fetch him out, and therefore they should cast him into the 
River, under Water where they would not find him ; and so 
they did." ^ 



> Herrera, I, 9, 3. 



CHAPTER II. 
Indians and White Servants. 

The Colony of Maryland was settled in 1634, under the 
proprietary government of Lord Baltimore. The royal char- 
ter, we may mention as passing, spoke not only of the spread 
of English territory, but, as charters usually did, of the zeal 
of the founder for spreading religion among a savage people 
who knew not God. The right to initiate all laws was soon 
secured to the Assembly by the Proprietor, and, although 
legislation remained subject to veto, the authorities in Eng- 
land interfered little in those internal affairs of the Colony 
which interest us most. Several cases of this interference we 
shall have to note, later. We begin with the little settlement, 
of some few hundred persons, about St. Mary's, on a penin- 
sula by the lower Potomac. There met the Governor, the 
appointee and representative of the Proprietor, the half dozen 
councilmen, and the freemen or their representatives, in 
assembly. 

The colonists at once, on landing, met with the Indians, a 
heathen race unknown to them in England. These pagans, 
as the white men called them, seemed friendly, and intercourse 
between the races began auspiciously. But the Indian saw 
with aversion the spread of the settlement, and the whites 
lost property and finally even a few lives at their hands. In 
1639, it was declared a penal offence for anyone, without the 
consent of the government, to leave the English plantations 

11 



12 The Negro in Maryland. 

to live among any Indians who were not christened.^ Some 
of the Indians were soon open enemies. The commission 
issued by the Governor, in 1640, to the commander of an 
expedition planned against a certain tribe, which had refused 
to make satisfaction for sundry insolences and rapines, auth- 
orized him to attack these Indians, with any company of 
Englishmen that would be willing to go, " and against them 
and their Lands and goods to execute and Inflict what may 
be inflicted by the Law of warr and the pillage and booty 
therein gotton to part and divide among the Company, that 
Shall perform the Service." " We find another proclamation, 
dated a few days later, forbidding all Englishmen, under 
penalty, from doing any injury to a neighboring tribe which, 
in peace and amity, the Colony had taken under its protection. 
The commission to the leader of an expedition against the 
unfriendly Sesquihanowes, in 1643, expresses the confidence 
of the authorities in his forwardness to vindicate the honor of 
God and of the Christian and English name upon those bar- 
barous and inhuman pagans, and bids him do all things needed 
for training his men, vanquishing the enemy, and "disposing 
of the spoils," and all things that any general might do by 
the law of war.^ In 1652, an expedition was planned against 
the Indians of the Eastern Shore, who had committed serious 
depredations and murder. It was ordered that one man out 
of every seven men in the Colony should be armed and 
equip[)ed by the six remaining at home, and that all the 
Indian prisoners brought back, unless otherwise disposed of 
by the Provincial Court, should be divided, according to their 
value, in a general division among those who had armed and 
sent forth the fighting men — who, in turn, were to share the 
other plunder. The captain was ordered to "make Warr 
upon and through God's Assistance by all possible raeanes to 



1 Bozman's Md., 11, 134. 
^Md. Arch., 111,87. 
»Md. Arc-h., Ill, 133. 



Indians and White Servants, 13 

Vanquish, destroy, plunder, kill or take prisoners at yo' dis- 
cretion all or any the s*^ Indians either by Sea or land, and 
being Soe taken to put them to Death by the Law of warr or 
to Save them at your pleasure." ^ 

An act of 1715, when the Southern Colonies were involved 
in an Indian war, provided — among permanent regulations 
for the militia — that any booty, plunder or Indian prisoners 
should be given by the commander to the soldier who took 
the same — to encourage men to enlist in such service.^ 

Indian slaves are occasionally mentioned in the old records. 
About 1660, one Indian was sold, as a punishment for petty 
larceny, and brought one thousand pounds of tobacco.^ But, 
while Indians taken in war might be enslaved, kidnapping 
of friendly Indians was early and always forbidden. It was 
declared felony, in 1649, to take or sell any friend Indian, 
without license from the Governor — and felony might then 
be punished with death. At the end of the century, the same 
offence was made punishable by fine and imprisonment, at 



^This expedition was given up, on account of bad weather. Md. Arch., 
Vol. Ill, 285. 

^ Acts of 1715, ch. 43 (Bacon's Laws of Maryland), continued indefinitely 
in 1722. The captain of an expedition in 1647 had been ordered to make 
no distribution until he should arrive at the fort, and give a just account to 
the authorities of all plunder taken. 

The practice of the Indians in requiring ransom, often, is well known. 
The Assembly of Maryland was petitioned, in 1650, to ransom two children 
held by hostile Indians. Nine hundred pounds of tobacco was asked for the 
elder and six hundred for the younger ; and the estate of their father, deceased, 
was not sufficient for this. The Assembly, stating that the public charges 
were then very heavy, directed that any of the colonists who chose to redeem 
them should be entitled to their service, in return, until they were twenty- 
one years of age. Bozman's Maryland, II, 396. 

We find an English soldier who had escaped from the Indians, in the 
French and Indian War of 1756, telling the Governor that, had he not 
escaped, he must have served his Indian captor all his days, for saving his 
life. 

^Mention of Indian slaves, in the Provincial Court Eecords, 1658-1662, 
pp. 143, 148, 187, 484, &c. 



14 The Negro in Maryland. 

discretion of the Governor and Council; and this act was con- 
tinued later. The reason, as stated in all the laws, was that 
no breach of peace might occur between the colonists and the 
neierhborino; Indians.^ In 1722, a resident of the Province 
was brought before the Governor and Council, committed for 
examination by the justices of Somerset county, for having 
sold or otherwise disposed of an Indian boy, of a tribe friendly 
to the English. On examination, the man confessed that the 
boy, in consideration of five pounds in money, a horse bridle 
and saddle, and two suits of clothes, indented to live with 
him as a servant for a term of thirty years, and that he after- 
wards sold the boy to a gentleman in Philadelphia, for fifteen 
pounds. In Virginia, he stated also, it was customary for 
Indians to be bound out, and this same boy had been pre- 
viously a servant there. Thereupon the Council decided that 
as the man had already satisfied the Indians, and had suffered 
more than three months' imprisonment, he should be mildly 
dealt with ; and he was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco 
and imprisoned one day.^ In articles of peace made in 1666 
between the government and a number of Indian settlements, 
it was stipulated that in case of danger from any hostile 
Indians, the Governor should appoint a place to which these 
friendly Indians might bring their wives and children for 
safety, and that these, if the men chanced to be killed, should 
remain free and not be servants to the English.^ All disputes 
between Englishman and Indian were for many years heard 
before the Governor and Council. After 1700, cases involving 
not over twenty shillings were decided at first by special com- 
missioners, and afterwards by any justice of the courts. After 
1756, the county courts heard cases of greater value, and 
decided the rents of Indian lands, &c.^ We find several 



'Md. Arcli., I, 250. Acts of 1G92, 1705, and 1715. See Prov. Court 
Kecords in Md. Arch., IV, pp. 392, 399. 
2 Council Records, 1721-1728, p. 47. 
3Md. Arch., II, 2G. 
♦1700, 6; 1717, 14; 1756, 9. 



Indians and White Servants. 15 

interesting cases concerning Indians. In 1642, a grand jury 
indicted for murder a certain planter, one Elkin, in that, 
when moved by malice and the instigation of the devil, he 
had shot an Indian, known as a king among a neighboring 
tribe. When brought before the court of the colony, the 
Governor and secretary on the bench, Elkin pleaded not 
guilty. The Proprietor's attorney gave as evidence the exam- 
ination of Elkin, duly attested and with Elkin's signature, in 
which was a confession that he killed the Indian, and an 
account of the aifair. But the jury gave a verdict of not 
guilty, saying that they so decided because they understood 
the deed had not been committed against the peace of the 
Proprietor or the King, because the party was a pagan, and 
because they had no precedent in the neighboring colony of 
Virginia to make the offence murder. The Governor there- 
upon directed them that those Indians who had been injured 
were in peace with the authorities, and that they should not 
take notice of what other colonies did, but of the law of Eng- 
land. After reconsideration, they found the prisoner guilty 
of murder in his own defence. Being told that this verdict 
was a contradiction, they reconsidered again, and found that 
the prisoner killed the Indian in self-defence. But the Gov- 
ernor refused to have this verdict entered, and called for 
another jury, to hear the same evidence. This jury found 
Elkin guilty of manslaughter. It is not uninteresting to 
note that proceedings were taken to have all the members of 
the first jury grievously fined — for having given an unsat- 
isfactory verdict, contrary to the verdict of the second jury, 
from the same evidence. The foreman was then fined, by 
the court, the sum of two thousand pounds of tobacco. And 
he was soon fined one thousand pounds more, for contempt of 
court, for having said at the first trial of Elkins, when the 
court was " importunately pressing & charging the Jury . . . 
& arguing & pleading the crime ags* the prisoner," that if an 
Englishman had been killed by the Indians, there would not 



16 The Negro in Maryland. 

have been so many words over it.^ The penalty given Elkins 
is not stated, bnt we find him afterwards a resident of the 
Colony. In the next year 1643, a coroner's jury returned 
that an Indian lad had been shot and killed by one John 
Dandy. Dandy at once entered security, in the sum of three 
thousand pounds of tobacco, to answer the charge of homicide. 
It is interesting to note that the Indian had been christened, 
before his death. The grand jury returned that the bill was 
true, and the petit jury gave a verdict of guilty of felony and 
murder. Two years before. Dandy had been sentenced to 
death for some serious oifence, but on petition of a great 
part of the Colony, the Governor had commuted the sentence 
to service to the government for three years. He was by 
trade a blacksmith and gunsmith, and, no doubt, a valuable 
man to the young colony. And now, again, he saved his 
own neck, being sentenced to fill the unpleasant office of pub- 
lic executioner. He was released from this four years later, 
having proved himself of service to the public.^ 

Lord Baltimore directed in 1651 that certain lands should 
be set aside as homes for some friendly Indians.^ When a 
queen of one of the Indian settlements in Maryland com- 
plained to the Governor that, though her people had retired to 
the bounds of their territory, as allotted them, the English 
plantations had advanced so near that their crops were injured 



iMd. Arch., IV, 177, 180-183. 

2 Md. Arch., IV, 255, '260 ; III, 98, 187. Also, Md. Arch., V, 480-482, 517. 

Treaties were frequently made between the Colony and Indian tribes. In 
one, for instance, with certain Eastern Shore Indians, in 1659, it was agreed 
that the Indians were to restore stolen goods, that any Indian who should 
kill a white man, should be given over, with any abettors, to the govern- 
ment, for justice according to law ; and that the Indians, if injured by wliites, 
should appeal to the neighboring county commissioners, while the English, 
vice versa, were to appeal to a certain Indian chief. By another treaty, a few 
years after, with a tribe recently hostile, the right was reserved to the Eng- 
lish of slaying any Indian who might be found killing cattle or hogs. (Md. 
Arch., Ill, 3G3, 433.) 

» Md. Arch., I, 330. 



Indians and White Servants. 17 

by the colonists' cattle, the Governor issued orders that no 
Ensclishmen should settle within three miles of the Indians.^ 
To a number of neighboring tribes of friendly Indians grants 
of land were secured by acts of assembly : it being most just, 
the acts read, that the ancient inhabitants of the Colony should 
have dwelling places in their native lands, free from the en- 
croachments and oppression of the English.^ 

Soon after the planting of the Colony certain restrictions 
were laid on the Indians, and on the intercourse between In- 
dians and English. To give or sell arms or ammunition to an 
Indian was felony, unless leave was gotten from the Governor. 
Nor could a colonist keep an Indian over night at his house, 
without leave. A few years later, permission was given to 
take arms and ammunition from any Indian who had not a 
license to carry them.^ Nor could an Indian be entertained 
by a white at any time. A few Indians had been allowed to 
carry arms for the use of certain colonists, doubtless for hunt- 
ing ; but these licenses were withdrawn.^ It is evident that 
these restrictions depended on hostilities between the Indians 
and the whites. In the game law of 1730, to preserve the 
breed of wild deer, there is special exemption for friendly 
Indians, who could kill all the deer required for their own use. 
The sale to the Indians of liquor in large quantities was for- 
bidden, to prevent disorders by drunken Indians. By an act 
of 1756 a census was to be made, by the local authorities, of 
all the Indians settled in Maryland, and those who wished to 
leave their towns were ordered to procure passes. This was 
during the French and Indian war.^ 

An act of assembly, in 1650, in recognition of the Proprie- 
tor, states, as the greatest blessing enjoyed by the Colony, the 



1 Md. Arch., Ill, 489, in 1663. 
2Md. Arch., II, 200; 1723, 18, &c. 
^ Bozman's Maryland, II, 45, 286. 
*Md. Arch., Ill, 143, 260; IV, 235, 359. 
51715, 16; 1756, 13. 
2 



18 The Negro in Maryland. 

privilege of planting Christianity among a "people that know 
not God, nor had heard of Christ."^ But we hear of no pains 
taken to convert the natives. In the plans for the settlement 
of all the Colonies, in fact, there is set forth this righteous 
end, but history shows that earnest efforts were no more made 
to reach it — than the black and Indian slaves, enslaved as 
captive heathen, were freed after they were converted. An- 
other act, for the confirmation of peace with certain In- 
dians, declares that the articles shall be kept, for the preserva- 
tion of the people of the Colony, and for the honor of the 
Proprietor and the English nation, '' which will undoubtedly 
suffer by breach of faith even to a heathen."^ The treatment 
of the Indian by the government of Maryland seems indeed 
to have been most fair. But it should not be overlooked that 
this policy would have been dictated, if from no other reason, 
by prudence and even by necessity. The Colonies were not 
founded without the aid of the gun ; and the words of John 
Archdale, the Quaker governor of Carolina, are of significance 
wider than the experiences of that Colony alone. "And, Cour- 
teous Readers," writes this staunch friend to the Indians, " I 
shall give you some farther Eminent Remark hereupon, and 
especially in the first Settlement of Carolina, where the Hand 
of God was eminently seen in thinning the Indians to make 
room for the English." For not only had the Indians there 
been cut off' largely from previous inter-tribal war, "but, 
again, it at other times pleased Almighty God to send unus- 
ual Sicknesses amongst them, as the Smallpox, etc., to lessen 
their numbers; so that the English, in Comparison to the 
Spaniard, have but little Indian Blood to answer for."^ 



1 Md. Arch., 1, 300. 

*Md. Arch., 11,131. 

^ Gov. Archdale, of Carolina, tells of his interview, in 1707, with four 
Indian i)risoners about to be sold as slaves to the West Indies, as was usual. 
They were Roman Catholics, havinj;; been taught probably by the Si)an- 
iards or French. The Covernor adds, tiiat on fuiding they were Christians, 
he thouf^ht in a most peculiar manner that they should be free. See Car- 
roll's Jlibt. CoU'ns of S. Carolina, II. 



Indians and White Servants. 19 

Should we digress to glance at other Colonies, we should find 
only better examples of the custom of enslaving Indian cap- 
tives, and of the distance usually "observed betwixt Chris- 
tians and Barbarians, as well in warres as in other negotia- 
tions" — to use the words of the Commissioners of the New 
England Colonies to the commander of the expedition against 
the Narragansetts, in 1645. The famous Body of Liberties 
of Massachusetts allowed such slavery, and captives in King 
Philip's war, at the close of the century, were sold.^ In Vir- 
ginia, while Indians captured in war became slaves for life, by 
act of assembly as well as by the custom, there was doubt for 
a time as to the proper lot of those who might be sold to the 
colonists by other Indians. This is a most interesting point 
to notice, as such Indians were practically in the same posi- 
tion to the colonists as were the negroes from Africa — sold by 
the traders to British merchants. When the king of one of 
the Virginia tribes sold a boy of another tribe — whether a 
captive in war we do not know — to one of the colonists as a 



When one of the tribes in Maryland asked the pleasure of the Gover- 
nor, in 1665, as to its removal from its old home, to which the whites were 
constantl}' approaching, the Council decided it would be safer for the Colony 
to keep these friendly Indians within its command. In 1694 the Governor 
asked the Assembly what answer should be made to a certain tribe of In- 
dians, which had recently tarried in Maryland, if it should return and 
ask leave to settle. It was at the time of the French and Indian wars at 
the North ; and the Assembly said it did not seem fit at that time to 
receive any strange nations of Indians. Whereupon the Council composed 
the following beguiling message for them, should they return : That Mary- 
land is a country dealing in tobacco and not in furs; and as they have had 
an invitation from the government of New York to settle in that province, 
they are advised that such parts as New York and Pennsylvania, which 
trade mostly in furs, will be the most proper for their abode. In answer to 
queries by the government in England, about 1760, the Governor stated that 
there were in the populous parts of Maryland only one hundred and twenty 
Indians. These lived on lands allotted them by the Assembly, and were 
very orderly. (Md. Arch., Ill, 534. Council Proceedings, 1694-1698; 
1753-1767.) 

^ For slavery in Massachusetts, see the admirable work of Dr. George H. 
Moore (Appleton & Co., New York, 1866). 



20 The Negro in Maryland. 

slave, an act of assembly declared that the king had no power 
to sell an Indian of another tribe, and that '' the said Indian 
be free, he speaking perfectly the English tongue and desiring 
baptism." This was about 1660. Some ten years later, the 
term of service of Indian prisoners, sold by their Indian cap- 
tors, and not Christians, was fixed at twelve years and no 
longer, except children, who were to serve until thirty years of 
age. But, about ten years later still, all such Indian prisoners 
were declared slaves for life.^ 

We do not know how many Indian slaves there were in 
Maryland, for they were classed with the negro slaves. The 
Indian certainly was little suited to be a slave, by disjjosition 
and habit.^ 



If we find mention of slaves but here and there, in the 
early records of Maryland, we are constantly meeting with 
white servants.^ These — Christian servants, as they were 
frequently called, in contrast to Indians and Africans — were 



1 Hening's Statutes of Va., TI, 155, 288, 491. A law of North Carolina, 
as late as the war of 1760, provided that hostile Indians should be the 
slaves of their captors. In Soutli Carolina, especially, kidnapping seems 
to have been carried on ; but steps were taken to prevent it, afterwards. 
The captives taken in the wars, early in the eighteenth century, had to be 
delivered to the receiver of the Colony, to be sold in the West Indies. 
(Hewatt's So. Carolina, I, 91 ; Statutes of So. Car., II, 311, 321.) 

^ Numbers of the Indian captives in the various Colonies seem to have 
been sold to the West Indies. 

Any number of Indian slaves would have been a very dangerous element 
in the Colonies. Cotton Mather tells us that the colonists in Massachusetts 
found certain Pequot Indian prisoners not able to "endure the Yoke," for 
few of them continued any considerable time with their masters. V^arious acts 
of the New England Colonies, about 1712, forbade the further importation 
of any Indian servants or slaves, as they were of a malicious, surly and re- 
vengeful spirit, and hard to govern withal. 

' Where we use the word servants, we mean white, indentured or hired, 
servants; not negroes. 



Indians and J^liite Servants. 21 

mostly natives of Great Britain who wished to try their for- 
tunes in the New World, but had not means for their passage 
and necessary expenses. So they entered into written agree- 
ments with persons of means, to serve these faithfully for a 
certain number of years, in return for transportation, clothes 
and living. The number of servants in Maryland seems to 
have been quite large, some colonists bringing as many as 
twenty or thirty or more.^ We hear of one who brought in 
over sixty. They were a desirable class in all the Colonies, 
important in settling the country, and counterbalancing any 
danger from Indians and negroes. Persons already in Am- 
erica often entered into service, too ; and the punishment for 
some offences was servitude. To prevent fraud and injustice, 
one of the earliest laws enacted in Maryland limited the time 
of service, where no time was specified in the agreement, and 
fixed the freedom dues to be given by the master.^ It was 
provided, later, that all agreements of service should be entered 
at the courts ; and no indenture made during service was to be 
binding for an extension of time.^ We have a copy of arti- 
cles of indenture made in 1647.* In return for six thousand 
pounds of tobacco, the man binds himself for three years, to 
obey, to serve, according to his master's commands ; not to 
absent himself without permission ; and not to steal. On the 
other hand, the master agrees to provide sufficient lodging, 
food, clothing and washing. It was found at once that 
servants would run away, so the courts were empowered to 
add to the time of service, to compensate the masters. The 
entertainment of others' servants was also strictly forbidden.® 
And when white servants ran away with slaves, they were 
obliged to recompense the owners of the slaves. After 1715, 
a reward of two hundred pounds of tobacco was offered every 



1 Neill's Founders of Md., 77. Md. Arch., Ill, 256, 259. 

2Md. Arch., I, 80. 

3Md. Arch., I, 352, 409; II, 351. 

*Md.Arch., IV, 327. 

*Md. Arch., I, 249, 489. 1715,44. 



22 The Negro in Maryland. 

colonist who should capture a runaway servant, and an Indian 
captor was given a match coat. No servant could go beyond 
ten miles from home without a pass from the master or over- 
seer, under penalty of being caught as a runaway. One who 
entertained a servant over night became liable to a fine of five 
hundred pounds of tobacco. Later, the fine was raised to one 
hundred pounds an hour, or a whipping, if the fine could not 
be paid. Nor was a servant secure, if he escaped the Colony. 
On complaint from his owner, the courts would send him 
back^ — as slaves were returned. Treaties with Indians stipu- 
lated that runaway servants were to be returned. In 1637, 
the question as to the privilege of servants to rest on Saturday 
afternoons, was raised in the lower House of Assembly, and 
it was declared that no such custom was to be allowed.^ 
AVorking on Sunday, however, was not customary. By act 
of 1715, masters who did not provide sufficient food, clothing 
and lodging for their servants, or who unreasonably burdened 
them beyond their strength, or kept them from necessary rest, 
or beat or abused them excessively — the whipping must not 
be over ten lashes for any one offence — were liable, if found 
guilty by the county court, to be fined not over one thousand 
pounds of tobacco for the first or second offence. On a third 
offence, the servants would be set free. Any magistrate, on 
proper complaint of the master, might order a servant to 
receive more than ten, but not over thirty-nine, lashes. Com- 
plaints between masters and servants were heard before the 
Provincial and county courts, on the petition of either ])arty. 
As many goods were stolen and sold, trading was forbidden 
with servants who had no license therefor.^ 

It is evident that this service was radically different from 
slavery, in that it resulted either from crime or voluntary con- 
tract. On the expiration of his term the servant became a 



iMd. Arch., IV, 224, 319. 

*Md. Arch., I, 21. Bozinan's Maryland, II, 13G. 

»Md. Arch., I, 500; 1715,44. 



Indians and White Servants. 23 

freeman and a citizen. For some years' it was the law that 
fifty acres of land should be included in the freedom dues, 
lauds being given masters for the servants they imported. 
Some of these servants were well educated men. We find an 
advertisement of sale, in 1774, of a schoolmaster, an indented 
servant, who had two years to serve, with the postscript that 
he was to be " sold for no fault, any more than we have done 
with him. He can learn (i. e., teach) bookkeeping, and is an 
excellent good scholar." Of the servants imported by one of 
the most prominent colonists, one became a sheriff and five 
went into the Assembly.^ This very same gentleman, the mil- 
itary commander of Maryland for many years, presented to 
the Governor and Assembly, in 1663, a petition which began 
with the statement that he had, for nearly thirty years, at 
great cost, benefited the Colony by yearly importations of ser- 
vants, many of whom had been of " very good Ranck and 
Quallity ; " nor had he ever before been charged with a 
breach of his promises or duty to them, though it was well 
known that the care of so large a family was never met by 
their labor. It appears that this worthy captain had con- 
sented, several years before, to take as a servant for seven 
years the ten-year-old daughter of a poor neighbor, at the 
neighbor's request. This fellow now falsely alleged that the 
captain had agreed that the girl should do nothing else than 
wait upon his wife, and be cared for as his own child — a most 
ridiculous charge, says the petition, for the lady was about to 
return to England, and who would be at the trouble of taking 
such a raw and ill-bred child there, where servants of all sorts 
might be had on easier terms ! The petition then desires 



1 Md. Arch., I, 97, 496. 

^Gambrall's Colonial Church Life in Md., 165 ; Neill's Founders, 77. A 
resident of Baltimore, appointed woodcorder in 1781, was found to have been 
a servant at the time when the oaths of allegiance to the States had been 
taken, after separation from Great Britain. So the commissioner adminis- 
tered the oath before confirming him in his office. 



24 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

the serious consideration of the court to the statement of the 
girl's father in begging that his daughter may not be made a 
slave — a term, says the captain, so scandalous that if it be 
admitted to be the title or condition of the apprentices in 
Maryland, no free-born Christians will ever be induced to come 
over as servants. Therefor, he prayed that his reputation 
might be vindicated, and the abused servants and apprentices 
of Maryland be righted.^ And yet the lot of the servant was 
not unlike that of the slave. He was a piece of property, 
practically. In the inventories of estates, his services are 
charged as worth so many hundred pounds of tobacco; one 
man might own his services to-day, and another to-morrow. 
By a deed of bargain and sale, of 1641, a man-servant w^as 
sold from one colonist to another, in different hundreds, for 
four milch cows. The Provincial Court held that the agree- 
ment of a servant to dispose of himself for the satisfaction of 
his master's debts was valid, and ordered execution on him, as 
on any goods.^ About 1 700, the Governor and Council received 
a complaint from a certain inhabitant, that a servant of his, a 
schoolmaster, whom he had corrected for being impudent and 
refractory, had applied to a magistrate for a peace-warrant 
against him. He declared that the servant had been insub- 
ordinate and had threatened to send his wife sprawling ; 
while the servant, in turn, accused his master of trying 
to break his head. The Council considered the matter, and 
decided to order the magistrate not to countenance the servant, 
for it was not customary to allow servants to swear the peace 
against their masters — and it might be very inconvenient. 
Cases of cruelty to servants were sometimes before the courts. 



' Md. Arch., I, 463. The House, according to the captain's request, 
ordered the case to be tried again. Do., 481. 

' Md. Arch., IV, 156, 327. 

C.'ouncil Proceedings, 1704-1708, 8. A letter from Gen. Oglethorpe to 
the trustees of (ieorgia, in 1739, tells how 69 "heads of German servants" 
had been delivered to different persons on credit; one Christie got "5f 
heads; " the widow Harris got 2, &c. 



Indians and White Servants. 25 

When the English courts took up the policy of transporting 
felons, a number of the worst convicts were sold as servants 
into the Colonies. Before the Revolution the custom of ser- 
vice had practically died out ; but it was a common custom at 
the time when slavery was planted in the Colonies. It must 
have tended, like the sharply marked class distinctions of that 
age, to make smoother the pathway for the growth of slavery. 



I 



CHAPTER III. 

Slaves. 

When, and by whom, the first negroes were brought to 
Maryland, we do not know ; but it was soon after the settle- 
ment. We find Governor Calvert bargaining with a certain 
shipmaster, in 1642, for the delivery of thirteen slaves at St. 
Mary's.^ The increase of the blacks — so much is certain^ 
was very slow at first. 

One of the first acts of Assembly, declaring " the liberties 
of the people," assured to all Christian inhabitants all the 
rights enjoyed in England by natural born subjects, except, 
of course, in so far as those rights might be changed by pro- 
vincial law — and excepting slaves. And the early acts for 
the regulation and protection of servants expressly stated that 
nothing contained in them should affect any slaves whatever. 
The rule in the courts was that justice should be administered, 
where provincial law or custom was silent, according to Eng- 
lish precedent. The royal charter to Lord Baltimore had 
ordered that the laws to be enacted in the Colony should be 
consonant to reason and, as far as conveniently might be, 
agreeable to the rights and customs of England.^ But the 
first colonists brouglit with them from England no precedent 
for giving any especial rights or privileges to Indian or negro — 
nothing but the distance felt in that age between Christian and 

» Md. Ardi., IV, 189. 

* Charter of Md., Md. Arch., I, 41, 80, 409, 487 ; III, 53, &c. 
26 



Slaves. 27 

heathen. There were no Indians in England, and few if any 
negroes. Even later, when a number of negro slaves were 
held in England, mostly as body servants, and sales of them 
at auction not infrequently took place, there was no legislation 
touching them. We have seen how the Colonies dealt with 
the Indians according to their own ideas of justice or pru- 
dence. British merchants, indeed, under the patronage of the 
British government, supplied the slaves; but the colonists 
otherwise built up their slave legislation as they saw fit. Just 
as a nobility, an incident of the growth of English society, 
existed in England at the time of the settlement of the Col- 
onies and yet took no root in them, so slavery became an 
incident of the condition of the Colonies, and the slave codes 
grew up as a matter of local law. Thus, we can trace in 
the legislation and in the court reports, and in the life of the 
plantation and the town, of such an unit as Maryland, the 
entire growth of a slave code.^ 



^ We use the word negro, or black, to include mulattoes. When the dis- 
tinction is to be drawn, the word mulatto is used. 

The legal view of the introduction and growth of slavery in the Colon- 
ies has been elaborately treated by Mr. John Codman Hurd in The Law of 
Freedom and Bondage (Little & Brown, Boston, 1858). 

The writer of a recent Constitutional History of England says that slavery 
was legalized in the colonies by British statutes encouraging the slave-trade. 
A number of negroes were brought to England as servants, some of them 
from the colonies. An article in the Gentleman's Magazine of London, in 
1764, speaks of the encouragement given to the practice of importing negro 
servants, and states that the number of such in London alone was supposed 
to be nearly twenty thousand. In the famous Somerset case, eight years 
after, Mr. Dunning asserted that there were in England fourteen thousand 
slaves brought from the colonies. Even as late as that time, negroes were 
occasionally sold in England. One negro boy in London brought thirty- 
two pounds, at auction, and another, at Richmond, brought the same. A 
boy was advertised to be sold at auction at Liverpool, in 1779. The visitor 
to Hampton Court or Warwick Castle, to-day, will see busts of black ser- 
vants, with metal collars about the neck. In 1677, there was tried in Eng- 
land a case of trover for one hundred negroes, and the court held that as 
negroes were usually bought and sold among merchants, and were also infi- 
dels, there might be property in them sufficient to maintain trover. As late 



28 The Negro in Maryland. 

Slaves had not increased much in numbers in the Colonies 
before a most interesting question arose concerning them — 
What was the effect on the status of a slave of his conversion 
to Christianity ? And the extent to which doubts on this mat- 
ter spread, and the length of time which those doubts lasted, 
show that the knowledge that a religious distinction was the 
basis of this chattel slavery was not confined to students of 
law alone. It was not unnatural that in popular belief free- 
dom M'as associated with baptism. In the first case concerning 
slaves, in English courts, in 1677 — in which the court held 
that trover would lie for the negro, as they were heathen — the 
argument was advanced that in England negroes could be no 
more a property than villeins could. But the court said they 
were held as goods by usage, and should therefore be given to 
the plaintiff, " until they become christians, and thereby they 
are Infranchised." During the session of the Maryland Assem- 
bly of 1664, a message was sent the Council by the House, 
requesting the former to draw up an act which should oblige 
negroes to serve for life, the assembly thinking this very neces- 
sary to prevent the damage that masters of slaves might sus- 
tain by such slaves pretending to be christened, and so pleading 
the law of England.^ And so a law was made that all negroes 



as 1694 judgment was given that trover would lie for a negro, for he was a 
heathen. After that, judicial opinions differed; and in about a century, 
public opinion changed so far as to support Lord Mansfield in his decision 
in the Somerset case, by which slavery in England ended. The abolition 
of slavery in the British colonies was brought aliout only after further and 
arduous efforts by the abolitionists and philanthropists. SeeTaswell-Lang- 
mead's Const. History of England, p. 300, note, British Statutes ; 10 Will., 
Ill, c. 26 ; 5 Geo., II, c. 7 ; 23 Geo., II, c. 31. Bandinel's Slave Trade, p. 
71, note. Gentleman's Macf., XXXIII, 45, XLI, 521. Memoirs of Granville 
Sharp, T, 140. Cases of Butts vs. Penny and Gelly & Cleve, quoted in Hurd. 
In the colonies, as we see, ideas of English law were often very uncertain. 

'Butts vs. Penny, in 3 Keble, 785. Md. Arch., I, 526-533. In Chamber- 
layne vs. Harvey, twenty years later, the question as to whether ba})tism was 
a manumission was raised, but the court gave no answer, holding that 
trover would not lie for a negro. In Carthew's R., 396. 



Slaves. 29 

or other slaves already in the Province, or to be imported 
thereafter, shonld serve for life. This was made more explicit 
seven years later, by an act entitled " an Act for the Encour- 
ageing the Importacon of Negros and Slaves," which declared 
that conversion or the holy sacrament of baptism should not 
be taken to give manumission in any way to slaves or their 
issue, who had become or should become Christians, or had been 
or should be baptized, either before or after their importation to 
Maryland, any opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. Be- 
cause, as the act says, several of the good people of this Province 
have been discouraged from importing or purchasing therein 
any negroes or other slaves ; and such as have imported or pur- 
chased any there have neglected — to the great displeasure of 
Almighty God and the prejudice of the souls of those poor 
people — to instruct them in the Christian faith, and to permit 
them to receive the holy sacrament of baptism for the remis- 
sion of their sin, under the mistaken and ungrounded appre- 
hension that their slaves, by becoming Christians, would 
thereby be freed.' So the law remained. To a question of 
the Lords of Trade as to the number of negroes converted to 
Christianity, Lord Baltimore answered, in 1678, that all he 
could say was that in many other parts of America masters 
were refusing, " out of covetousness," to allow their negroes 
and mulattoes to be baptized — of an idea that baptism would 
work as much loss to them as the death of their slaves ; but 
when this opinion became current in Maryland, a law was made 
declaring that as in former times the baptism of villeins in 
England was not taken to be manumission or enfranchise- 
ment, so it should not then be taken to free negroes and mulat- 
toes. And there have been found good eiFects since, adds the 
proprietor, masters generally being willing to instruct these 
in the faith of Christ.^ We find little else in Maryland to 



^ Md. Arch., II, 272. Reenacted in 1692, and, in other words, in the per- 
manent act of 1715 (44), 
«Md. Arch., V, 267. 



30 The Negro in Maryland. 

throw light on this most interesting subject. One colored man, 
a native of Madagascar, who had been a servant in England, 
and had then been shipped to America as a servant, was 
detained as a slave in Maryland. On petitioning for freedom 
in 1602 — which was given him, the court finding that he 
had been shipped as a servant only — his plea was that he had 
been baptized and educated and had served two apprentice- 
ships, and was therefore free by the laws of England. We 
find the zealous Thomas Story publicly reproaching a clergy- 
man of the English church, at a yearly meeting of Friends at 
West River, in 1699, for taking negroes into the brother- 
hood of Christ in baptism, and yet keeping them slaves.^ 
The idea that baptism implied freedom seems to have lin- 
gered long in all the Colonies, even where there was direct 
legislation to the contrary. In 1729, in response to an appeal 
from some of the American colonists — evidently, according to 
Bishop Berkeley, in order to increase the conversion of the 
blacks — the Crown-Attorney and the Solicitor-General of 
England sent over their opinion that baptism in no way 
changed the slave's status.^ 



' Prov. Court, Liber C, 162. Janney's History of the Friends, III, 66. 
According to that zealous missionary of the time, Rev. Dr. Bray, the whites 
of Maryhind abstained largely from baptism themselves. 

*Tliis opinion seems to have been especially called for in Rhode Island. 
Works of Berkeley, Vol. III. See, also, Pearne vs. Li.sle, Ambler's R., 75. 

In Virginia tiiere was enacted, in 1GG7, that baptism did not give freedom, 
so that divers masters, freed from doubt, might endeavor to spread Chris- 
tianity among the blacks. By the Act of 1670, all servants ?(o< christians 
and imported by sea, were to serve for life. But this was changed twelve 
years later, having been found inconvenient in preventing the introduction of 
slaves from neighboring colonies : inasmuch, we read, as many Negroes, 
Moors and others, born in heathenish, idolatrous and Mahometan countries, 
have been gotten as slaves therefrom by some well disposed christians, who 
have then brought them to the christian religion, out of a pious zeal, and 
have since had occasion, or may have occasion, to bring them into Virginia 
to be sold — whore they can sell them only for the Iin)ited time of service of 
a white christian servant, and nuist then either carry them elsewhere, where 
they can be sold as slaves for life, or else depart from their just right to 



Slaves. 31 

Until a few years only before slavery was abolished, the 
old religious distinction that underlay that institution was 
still to be read in one law of Maryland. The testimony of 
no negro or Indian would be received as evidence at law in 
any case in which " any Christian white person " was con- 
cerned. The word Christian was struck out in 1846. 

The clever political student Bodin, writing in 1576 of slav- 
ery in Southern Europe, noted with some reproach that — like 
the Mahometans, who converted but still kept in bonds their 
Christian prisoners — the Portuguese and Spaniards were keep- 
ing in perpetual slavery the Moors and negroes whom they 
had taken as heathen but had converted. ^ In Maryland and 
the other Colonies there was probably no widespread and seri- 
ous opposition to the continuance of this bondage of the chil- 
dren of enslaved Indians or Africans, whether heathen or Chris- 
tian. Thus slavery was based on a race distinction ; though we 



them, to their great damage, and to the great discouragement of the impor- 
tation of slaves. (Hening's Statutes, 1667, 3; 1670, 12; 1682, 1.) About 
1700, there appeared in print in New England an earnest plea for the relig- 
ious instruction of the negroes and Indians. The writer, who says he does 
not know why freedom should follow conversion, asks what hindrance there 
is to the baptism of those people. It is a notorious matter of fact, he 
answers, that masters discourage those poor creatures and hinder them from 
coming to baptism, though many desire it. Talk to a planter of the soul of 
a negro, and his actions, if not his words, will tell you that the body of the 
black may be worth twenty pounds, but the souls of a hundred will not yield 
him a farthing. The true reason is, that custom of giving them their free- 
dom after they become christians. (Moore's Slavery in Mass., 93.) An Eng- 
lish clergyman in Carolina, in 1709, wrote to the secretary of the Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel, that a few of the two hundred and more 
negroes in his neighborhood were taught of the christian religion, but their 
masters would by no means permit them to be baptized, from a false notion 
that a slave is thereby freed, by law. Another missionary wrote, soon after, 
that he had with much importunity prevailed on a certain person to allow 
him to baptize three of the negroes. (Hawk's North Carolina, II, 310, 
832.) So fixed had these ideas become in Ehode Island, as stated by Bishop 
Berkeley in a sermon at London, in 1732, that but few negroes there had 
been baptized. 

^ Commonweale, Knolles' Trans., 43. 



32 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

must be careful in supposing that such changes were plainly 
seen, or that most men acted from theories. As a rule, men 
were thinking of material prosperity. Most of those who 
theorized on the subject, echoed, without doubt, the voice of 
that New England writer, who appealed for the religious 
instruction of the negroes : Some persons, nay, some nations, 
he says, seem to be born for slaves ; particularly many of the 
barbarians of Africa, who have been such almost from the 
beginning of the world, and who are much better oif when 
slaves among us than when free at home, to cut throats and 
eat one another, especially if by slavery of the body they are 
made capable of freeing their souls.^ 

However the matter of religion or race may have entered 
into slavery, the "color line" was not drawn as sharply in 
Maryland at first as it was afterwards — although " negroes 
and other slaves," as we read in the old acts, were certainly 
deemed a most abject class. As an illustration of this, as 
well as of the newness of many questions which the few legis- 
lators at St. Mary's had to answer, we place here several laws, 
which might properly be considered also under the head of 
crimes and punishments. In drawing up the act of 1664, to 
prevent slaves from pleading freedom by baptism, the Council 
asked the lower House what it intended should become of 
such free women of the English or other Christian nations as 
married negroes or other slaves ; should they serve as long as 
their husbands lived, and should their issue be bond or free? 
Suits had evidently arisen over such issue, and some damage 
been caused to the masters of the slaves. In a few hours, the 
House sent back their answers — that women so married sliould 
not serve during their husbands' lives, and that their chiklren 
should serve to thirty years of age. But the act, which was 
soon passed — reciting that divers frceborn English women, 
forgetful of their condition and to the disgrace of their nation. 



' Moore's Slavery in Mass., 94 ; quoting from the Athenian Oracle of 
about 1700. 



Slaves. 33 

intermarried with negro slaves — declared, that such women as 
might so marry thereafter should-«efve the slaves' masters so 
long as the slaves lived, and that children of such marriages 
already made should serve until they were thirty years old, but 
that the children of such marriages made thereafter should be 
slaves "as their fathers were."^ By the act of 1681, children 
born of white servant women and negroes were free.^ After 
1692, the .issue of a union between any white woman and any 
slave or free negro became servants for a long term.^ By the 
act of 1715, ministers and magistrates were forbidden, by fine, 
to marry any white to " any Negro whatsoever, or Mulatto 
Slave." By this, a white and a free mulatto could marry. 
And an act, two years later, to provide penalties against the 
parties marrying unlawfully, under this act of 1715, made a 
free negro or mulatto liable to service for life — except mulat- 
toes born of white women, who had to serve, like the whites, 
for only seven years,* Again, by act of 1728, free mulatto 



^This act declared that "Negroes or other slaves" should serve for life, 
and that " all children born of any Negro or other slave shall be Slaves as 
their ffathebs were for the terme of their lives." There must have been 
then no free blacks in the colony — or we are left to reason that children 
followed the condition of the father instead of the mother, entirely con- 
trary to custom, as we find it later. (Md. Arch., I, 526, 533.) The act 
of 1681 declared simply that all children of slaves were to serve for life. 

^ The mother also became free ; and her master, if he knew of the mar- 
riage, was liable also to a fine of 10,000 pounds of tobacco, and so was the min- 
ister or magistrate who performed the service. (Acts of 1681, W. H., 174.) 

^ By this act of 1692, also, the white woman who married, or became with 
child by, a slave or free negro, became a servant for seven years, to the use 
of the parish clergy or the poor. If a servant and if her master had not 
known of her offence, she first recompensed his loss by service. The black 
served for life, except that a free black, for having a bastard child by a 
white woman, served seven years. There was the same heavy fine against 
the master who allowed such a marriage and against the person who per- 
formed it. And there was, also, the provision that any white man who 
married with, or had child by, a negro woman, should be put to service for 
seven years. (1692, L. L. 220.) 

* Service for seven years at the disposition of the county court, for the 
benefit of the public schools. By act of 1715, the fine against minister or 

3 



34 The Negro in Maryland. 

women who might have children by " negroes and other 
slaves" were to be punished by the same penalty as white 
women for the same offence — which was declared to be as 
heinous for a free mulatto as for a white. ^ So, the act of 1717, 
which remained the law of evidence for a long period, ex- 
cluded the testimony of any Indian or slave or free negro or 
mulatto servant, in cases at law in which any Christian white 
person was concerned, but left the free mulatto, apparently — 
the free mulatto born of a white woman, surely — as free to 
testify as was a white.^ 

Africans might be more or less colored, but they were not 
all slaves, of course. And kidnapping came to be recognized 



magistrate was made 5,000 pounds of tobacco. Any white woman who 
became a mother by a slave or free negro had to serve seven years, as 
before, and the free black served the same time. The children of such 
unions served until thirty-one years old. There was, also, the same service 
of seven years for white men, the fathers of illegitimate colored children. 
All service was disposed of by the courts. (1715,44; 1717,13.) 

^ All free negro women, also, having illegitimate children by white men, 
were liable to the same punishment as white women for having children by 
negroes. Forasmuch, says the preamble, as such relations, as between a 
free mulatto woman and a slave, or a free negro woman and a white, " are 
as unnatural and inordinate as between white women and Negro Men, or 
other Slaves." (1728, 4.) 

^ 1717, 13. See Evidence, in chapter on The Free Negro. 

In 1788, a committee of the House of Delegates reported in favor of 
abolishing those parts of these laws which inflicted penalties on the chil- 
dren. Two years later, they were abolished ; it being contrary to the dic- 
tates of humanity, and to the principles of the Christian religion, says the 
preamble of the act of repeal, to impose penalties on children for the 
offences of their parents. (1790, 9. Code of 1860, Art. 30, 128.) 

Several cases, under these laws, came to the Court of Appeals. 

In 1681, the Lord Proprietor brought witli him to Maryland a white 
servant called Irish Nell. She married a slave, evidently before the pas- 
sage of the act of 1681. Perhaps indeed the act was called for by this 
marriage. The descendants of those children of Nell, born after the act — 
whicli exempted from servitude the children of such marriages made there- 
after — petitioned in vain for freedom. See 1 H. & McH., 210; 2 H. & 
McH., 137. Also 3 II. & McH., 380. The cases cited from the Maryland 
Reports down to 2 Gill, are from Rrantly's edition. 



Slaves. . 35 

by all authorities as a crime, by custom if not by positive leg- 
islation.^ But it is evident that the status of a black, or of 
his ancestry, could not often be easily shown. 

The chief justice of Calvert county was asked by the Gov- 
ernor and Council of Maryland, in 1760, to examine carefully 
one Cousins, captain of a brigantine, who had recently im- 
ported a number of negroes into the Province, — as word had 
just come to the Governor that several of these negroes had 
declared that they were not slaves but freemen ; that one of 
them in particular, called Capt. Gray, was the son of an Afri- 
can of some consequence ; and that Captain Cousins had 
treacherously stolen them away. See, therefore, ends the let- 
ter, if Cousins be guilty of the crime whereof he is accused ; 
and if the evidence be sufficient, have him brought before the 
Council at once. The depositions of the mates, a boatswain 
and a sailor of the brigantine, were soon sent to the Council. 
The seaman testified that he had sailed from Liverpool with 
Cousins on a slaving voyage to Guinea, and that there the 
negroes were purchased ; all of whom he believes were slaves, 
except, perhaps, the one called Captain Gray. This Gray, he 



^The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, of 1641, restricted slavery — ex- 
cept, of course, for crime — to lawful captives taken in just war, and to such 
strangers as might be sold to, or might willingly sell themselves to, the col- 
onists. A few years after, a kidnapped negro from Africa was sent home, 
by order of the General Court — which felt bound, so reads the resolution, to 
bear witness against the " heinous and crying sin of man-stealing." 
(Moore's Slavery in Mass.) 

The British statute, for extending and improving the trade to Africa, at 
the middle of the last century — which declared that trade to be very advan- 
tageous to Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the Colonies with suffi- 
cient negroes at reasonable rates — provided that no master of a ship trading 
in Africa should by force or fraud, or any indirect practice, carry away from 
that country any native thereof, or allow any violence to be committed on 
the natives in prejudice of the British trade. (23 Geo. II, 31.) In 1779 a 
captain of a Liverpool slaver was prosecuted by the African company for 
having sold a free negro, whom he had hired as a sailor. He was fined five 
hundred pounds, as a warning to the other commanders engaged in the 
trade. (Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, III, 638.) 



36 The Negro in Maryland. 

understood, had been a servant to a freeman on the coast of 
Guinea, and was employed by his master in carrying slaves 
out to the ships. While thus at work, he stole a scarlet jacket 
from Captain Cousins, who never allowed him to go on shore 
afterwards, but offered to return him if another slave were 
given for him. But those to whom this offer was made refused 
to exchange him, saying that he was a scandal to his country, 
and they would not give for him a slave four feet high. The 
seaman further stated that he had heard that servitude was the 
common punishment for crime in that country. The mates 
and boatswain swore that Gray was not only taken in theft, 
but had been concerned afterwards in cutting the ship's cable, 
and so endangering her loss ; and that the other negroes in 
question had been left on the ship as pledges by the traders, 
for some seven weeks or more before she sailed, without any 
offers to redeem them, and that as many goods had been given 
for them as for other slaves. The Council deemed the com- 
plaints groundless, and Captain Cousins was discharged. A 
petition for freedom, of a certain woman — held, it so hap- 
pened, by a parish — came before the General Court of Mary- 
land in 1796. The fact was admitted, without question on 
either side, that the petitioner was descended from a negro 
woman who had been imported many years before from Mad- 
agascar. The counsel for the petitioner claimed that the act 
which stated that all slaves imported, and their issue, should 
be slaves, related to those brought from countries whence slaves 
were customarily exported. A person brought from any 
country where the slave trade was not carried on, and sold in 
Maryland, would not lawfully be a slave. Madagascar was 
not a place whence slaves were usually brought; and Vol. 6 of 
the " World Displayed " was cited. On the other hand, the 
counsel for the parish quoted three works of geography and 
travel, in which there was stated that in Madagascar the petty 
kings make war on each other for })lunder and slaves, and 
are accustomed to sell slaves to Europeans. The court dis- 
missed the petition, holding that, as Madagascar was a country 



Slaves. 37 

where the slave trade was practised, and Maryland was one 
where slavery was tolerated, the petitioner, in order to receive 
her freedom, would have to show that her ancestor was free in 
her native country.^ 

The act of 1664 and its successors, declaring the children 
of slaves to be slaves, did not operate, to quote the General 
Court of Maryland in a decision in 1799, to make all negroes 
slaves, but merely created a presumption that they were such, 
which presumption could be rebutted.^ There was growing 
up slowly, during the eighteenth century, from manumission 
or free ancestry, a small free black population. If one parent 
of a child was free and the other was a slave, the status of the 
child — as under Roman law — was that of the mother. 

The existence of slavery in Maryland was stated plainly in 
many acts of assembly and in a constitutional amendment of 
1837. But, as the courts in some of the free States began to 
require owners of fugitive slaves to prove the existence of 
slavery in the State where the slaves belonged, an act of 1839 
declared that in Maryland from the earliest settlement, negroes 
and might be thereafter held as such, as the property of their 
and mulattoes had been held as slaves, and were then held 
owners ; and that the owner of any slave was entitled to his 
service during his life, unless the slave could show that by the 
grant or devise of his owner, or of some former owner of his 
or of his maternal ancestor, a shorter period of service had 
been prescribed. A negro was presumed to be a slave. If 
he petitioned for freedom, the question to be tried was his 
right thereto, not the right of his master to hold him in 
slavery. The slave must bear the burden of proof. Nor 
was the fact that a negro went at large and acted as a freeman, 
deemed a proof that he was free.^ 



1 Council Eecords, 1753-1767 ; Sept. 22d, 1760. 3 H. & McH., 278. 
*4H. &McH., 193. 

3 1839, 42. 6 G. & J., 86 ; 9 G. & J., 112, 127. See chapter on Manu- 
mission. 



38 The Negro in Maryland. 

The acts of the Assembly of Maryland of 1671 and 1692— 
which, as we have seen, declared that the children of slaves 
were slaves, and that conversion did not aifect slavery — were 
entitled, acts to encourage the importation of negroes, and 
were passed because several of the good people of the Province 
had been discouraged, so we read, from importing them.^ 
But the number of those brought in was small, until about 
the beginning of the eighteenth century. Governor Nicholson 
wrote the Board of Trade, in 1698, that some six hundred 
servants had recently been imported and four or five hundred 
negroes were expected during the summer.^ There is men- 
tion of some three hundred slaves brought into Patuxent 
Bay in August, 1700. The Board of Trade in London was 
constantly asking after the state of the slave importations. 
The Governor of Maryland wrote, in 1708, that the trade 
had been rising and was then a " high " one ; that some six 
or seven hundred blacks had been imported in the ten months 
past.^ Two years later, came word that the negroes were 
increasing. The Public Record Office in London has a list 
of the "Christian" men, women and children and also of 
negro slaves, in Maryland, in 1712.* The whites numbered 



' In the same way we find early laws of South Carolina declaring that 
negroes are necessary for the development of that Province. 

A prominent member of the Massachusetts Bay Company wrote his 
brother-in-law, the elder Winthrop, in speaking of the Narrragansett In- 
dians, about 1645, that " if upon a Just Warre the Lord should deliver 
them into our hands, we might easily have men woemen and cliildren 
enough to exchange for Moores, (i. e. negroes) which wilbe more gayneful 
pilladge for us than wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive 
untill wee get into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for 
our children's children will hardly see this great Continent fdled with 
people, soe tliat our servants will still desire freedom to plant for them- 
selves, and not stay but for verie great wages. And I suppose you know 
verie well how wee sliall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe 
servant." (Moore's Slavery in Mass., 10.) 

'Steven's Hist. Indu.x, vols. 4 and 5. 

•'Records from the London Oflioe, quoted in Scharf's Maryland, I, o76. 

* Steven's Index, vol. 8. Scharf, I, 377. 



Slaves. 39 

nearly thirty-eight thousand, the negroes over eight thousand. 
In three of the southern counties, the blacks far outnumbered 
the whites. In the years following, both races increased fast, 
but the blacks faster than the whites. By 1750, the whites 
may have been nearly a hundred thousand, the blacks nearly 
forty thousand.^ In 1790, there were over two hundred and 
eight thousand whites, and nearly half as many slaves ; the 
eight thousand and odd free blacks making the proportion of 
white to black as less than two to one. 

The great staple of colonial Maryland, as of Virginia, was 
tobacco. The Governor of Virginia wrote of the tobacco 
trade, in 1726, as the one by which the governments of the 
Colonies subsisted. Tobacco was the common currency. Cot- 
ton seems to have been planted somewhat before 1700, but it 
was spoken of by one high official to another as prejudicial to 
the planting of tobacco and the King's interest. So great was 
the production of tobacco that efforts were made by the colo- 
nial authorities both to improve the staple by more limited 
crops, and to turn the interests of men to other things — but it 
was hard to make men agree to the first, and to both aims the 
policy of the mother country was bitterly opposed. Hardly 
had a generation passed, after the foundation of the Colony, 
before laws were enacted, to encourage the production of hemp 
and flax, and manufacturing and tanning. But it was little 
use to urge men to work the iron ore, when an act of Parlia- 
ment, encouraging the exportation of pig iron from the Colo- 
nies to England, forbade in them the erection of any furnace 
or forge. By 1750, the trade of Maryland, chiefly in to- 
bacco, was carried on by British vessels of some twelve thou- 
sand tons, total burden — the shipping of the Province being 
forty or fifty small craft, only. Among the queries sent, 
some ten years later, by the authorities in England to the 
Council of Maryland was the question : are there any trades or 



^ The early estimates of population in the Colonies seem as a rule to be 
very untrustworthy. We must take them as approximations. 



40 The Negro in Blaryland. 

manufactures in Maryland which are hurtful or may prove 
hurtful to Great Britain ; and, if so, how may they be sup- 
pressed, divided or restrained? And in reply we read, that the 
chief branch of trade was the importation of goods and manu- 
factures from Great Britain, supposed to be worth annually 
more than one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, and, in 
return, an annual export of about twenty-eight thousand 
hogsheads of tobacco, bringing to the producers and the mer- 
chants together, before it reached the English markets, nearly 
three hundred thousand pounds. Perhaps eighty thousand 
pounds worth of other produces were shipped — corn, wheat, 
pig iron, skins, lumber, &c. This trade was carried on in 
some hundred and twenty British vessels of eighteen thousand 
tons, total burden. The boats belonging in the Province 
numbered about thirty only, of thirteen hundred tons in all, 
and had been mostly engaged in the West India trade ; but 
that trade had not been very profitable, and there was little 
probability of its increase. As to manufactures or trades in 
the Province which might be hurtful to Great Britain, there 
were none.^ 

Even as late as this time, we must remember, the bulk of 
the population of these Southern Colonies had not gone far 
from the coast. Maryland, like Virginia, had been well 
suited for agriculture in its physical characteristics. For years 
the settlements had been mostly dotted along tidewater, plan- 
tation after plantation, with few towns. Endeavors made to 
build large towns and ports by act of assembly were far from 
successful.^ The flat fields were cut up by a network of riv- 
ers and creeks. A short row in a boat would often save near 
neighbors miles of travel over wretched roads. Up these 
inlets came the British vessels, to give to the planters the man- 
ufactures that he seldom saw otherwise, and to take away the 



' See Md. Arch., V, 16, 266. Council Kecords, 1749, 390; 1761, 316 
(416?); 1756, 117. 

«A8 1683, 5; 1684, 2; 1688, 6, &c. 



Slaves. 41 

tobacco and breadstuffs from the very fields where they were 
raised. 

The British ships brought not only the manufactures, but 
the slaves. The colonists themselves were anxious, at first, as 
we have seen, for supplies of blacks. In how far they were 
influenced by ideas that black labor was cheap and advantag- 
eous labor, peculiarly suited to those flat coast lands, hot and 
malarial in summer ; or in how far competition between these 
tobacco regions may have really ruled out any other labor, we 
do not venture to answer.^ But to the British, the slave trade 
only supplemented the policy of discouragement of manufac- 
tures and encouragement of tobacco. Acts of Parliament, at 
the beginning and middle of the eighteenth century, encour- 
aged it as highly beneficial to both mother country and colo- 
nies ; and it was pursued to the benefit of the British Crown, 
as well as of the merchants. Of the twenty-two hundred and 
ninety negroes imported into Maryland from 1699 to 1707, 
all but a hundred and twenty-six came in London vessels.^ 

Towards the close of the seventeenth century the public charges 
of the Province had been growing burdensome. Efforts were 
being made to increase the facilities for education. The seat 
of government was moved to Annapolis. In 1689 war broke 
out between Great Britain and France, to bring new burdens 
on the Colonies threatened by French and Indians. The same 
Assembly which reeuacted the law to encourage the introduction 
of slaves in 1692, laid a new duty of fourpence a gallon on 



^ The introduction of slavery into Georgia suggests most interesting ques- 
tions of this kind. The only labor allowed in Georgia, by the rules of the 
Trustees of the Colony, for some twenty years after the settlement, was white 
labor. Many considerations, as the nearness of hostile Spaniards and In- 
dians, and the unfavorable character of part of the settlers, prevent any 
hasty answers ; but climate, especially in the production of rice in the low- 
lands, and the fact that the same produces could be bought much cheaper 
on the Carolina side than on the Georgia side of the Savannah, were cer- 
tainly strong influences on those Georgians, by far the great majority of 
authorities and citizens, who finally secured the introduction of black labor. 

^Doc. from Public Record oflice, quoted in Scharf's Md., I, 377. 



42 The Negro in Maryland. 

imported liquors, to discharge the arrears of government, to 
pay soldiers, to repair courthouses and prisons, and for other 
charges. Two years later this was continued, and a duty was 
laid further on several commodities exported, as furs, beef and 
bacon, for the maintenance of the free schools. The next 
year, in addition, a duty of threepence a hogshead was put on 
tobacco, for a year ; and ten per cent, on all " European com- 
modities " exported, for three years ; as well as a tax on cer- 
tain local offices.^ Over three hundred pounds had then to be 
sent towards the support of the colonial forces in New York. 
It was then — when the Province was so destitute of ready 
money, to pay the soldiers in arms for its defence, that a mem- 
ber of the House of Delegates offered to loan certain sums 
until he could be reimbursed from the treasury — that the first 
duty w'as laid on slaves imported, and on white servants, too. 
The majority of the Assembly declared for ten shillings a head 
on negroes ; all agreed on two shillings sixpence for servants. 
The receipts were thereupon to be applied to the building of a 
statehouse and other expenses. We should note that at the 
same session, there was passed an act to restrain large assem- 
blages of negroes. There were rumors of movements by papists 
and negi'oes — it is interesting to note how European politics 
were reflected in the Colonies, often amounting only to a little 
talk, and some legislation. At the next session the duty on both 
negroes and Irish servants was made twenty shillings a head — 
with a penalty of five pounds on any smuggling merchant or 
shipmaster — to raise su])plies and to limit the importation of 
Irish pai)ists. The full title of the act of 1704, which con- 
tinued this, was an Act for imposing threepence a gallon on 
liquors, "and twenty Shillings })er poll for Negroes, for raising 
a tSupply to defray the public charge of this Province ; and 
twenty shillings per poll on Irish Servants, to prevent the im- 
porting too great a Number of Irish j)aj)ists into this Province." 
But by act of the same session, liquors and negroes could be 

' 1G92, 22; 1094, 19, 23. 



Slaves. 43 

imported without duty in vessels owned wholly by residents 
of Maryland, to encourage the inhabitants to adventure their 
ships abroad more freely. In 1715 the same exemption was 
offered, in addition, for Irish servants imported in home ves- 
sels. The next year an additional duty of four pounds a head 
was laid on Irish servants and on negroes, for the old reasons ; 
but this act met with the dissent of the Lord Proprietor. So 
the next Assembly laid twenty shillings more a head on them, 
making the total duty forty shillings, except for those imported 
in home vessels. So the duty remained for years, except that 
after 1728, home vessels had to pay half duty ; and after 1732, 
Protestant servants from Ireland could be imported free, as 
from elsewhere.^ These duties were to be laid on all importa- 
tions, by land or water; but after 1721, residents of Mary- 
land, who owned slaves in other colonies, and persons coming 
to Maryland to settle — as complaint was made of the hardship 
such persons had to suffer through the duties — were allowed 
to import their servants free, if not for sale.^ 

We have no grounds for presuming that the early duties on 
negroes were laid for any other reason than that given in the 
acts — the payment of public charges. But by the middle of 
the century there was evidently some opposition rising to the 
further large importation of them. Maryland was not such a 
frontier, nor was its black population so large in proportion to 
the whites, as to cause its citizens the anxieties which were felt 
in South Carolina, where the laws, which had not long since 



'Proceedings ofHouse, May, 1695; 1695, ch. 9; 1696,7; 1699,23; 1704, 
9,67; 1715,36; 1716,6; 1717,10; 1728,8; 1732,23. After 1735, no duty 
had to be paid for any servant or slave who might die, or be exported by 
the importer, within three months after importation. (1735, 6.) When 
the House of Commons asked, in 1736, for the laws in force by which duties 
were laid on various articles of trade, the Governor of Maryland answered, 
for negroes, forty shillings. This evidently referred to the duty for those 
imported on English vessels ; and the home commerce, as we have seen, 
amounted to little. 

n721, 9. 



44 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

spoken of the need of black labor, now called for whites, and 
ascribed the faster increase in the blacks to the " afflicting 
providence of God." But when, during the French and 
Indian w^ar, the Maryland Assembly argued with many words 
the expediency of requiring indentured white servants to do 
military duty, as called for by the Governor, one objection 
thereto was that the importation of servants would decrease, 
for planters would import more blacks, who were never sub- 
ject to military duty. When a country, answered the Gover- 
nor, is in danger of being lost to the enemy, it is no time for 
its government to enter into critical dissertations as to whether 
the enlistment of servants may not tend to lessen the importa- 
tion of them, for planting, and to increase that of slaves.' 

In 1754 new duties were laid, to meet the demands for His 
Majesty's service in the French and Indian war. A pedler 
had to pay four pounds for his license ; each wheel of a carriage 
cost the owner five shillings a year ; twenty shillings a head 
was put on all servants imported, to serve for seven years or 
more, and five shillings on most others. On negroes, ten shil- 
lings a head was added to the existing forty. When larger 
expenses had to be met, later, some new duties were laid. The 
duty on servants for long terms was abolished, and twenty 
additional shillings per head was put on negroes.^ When 
these new duties ceased, a year after the war ended, there was 
laid a duty of two pounds a head on negroes, over and above 
the still existing duty of forty shillings.^ But, as before, any 



^ Council Records, 1756, 90. 

"Among the provisions of this act were a tax of 5 shillings a year on all 
unmarried men worth from £100 to £300, and 20 shillings on those of 
greater means ; for every billiard table, £3 ; for every horse imported from 
any colony for sale, a duty of 40 shillings; a tax of 1 shilling on every 100 
acres of freehold property, except lands owned by papists, who paid 2 shil- 
lings, &c. 1754,9; 1756,5. 

^1763, 28. The acts 1715, 36; 1717, 10, seemed to have continued in 
force. So the total duty, to 1771, was eighty shillings a head. The money 
was applied to the schools. 



Slaves. 45 

person coming to Maryland to live, from any part of the 
King's dominions, could bring in his servants free. And the 
duty would be remitted also on slaves exported within two 
months. Eight years later, in 1771, there was placed a fur- 
ther additional duty of five pounds a head — excepting, as 
before, those brought in by persons coming to settle, and 
excepting those exported within four months — on importations 
by land or water. This ceased in 1778, but within two years, 
under pressure of war, taxes and duties were rated anew. As 
before, nothing had to be paid on slaves brought in, not for 
sale, by persons coming to reside. Otherwise, there was a 
duty of fifteen pounds on every slave who had lived in the 
States for full three years, and of five hundred pounds on 
every other.^ After two years, in 1782, as enough of the 
required funds had been raised by taxes and sales of State 
property, some of these new duties — as those on iron and 
tobacco exported — were taken off; and it was declared that all 
those on imports should cease as soon as Congress should lay 
the expected duty of five per cent., except the duty on slaves. 
And at the same session the tax rate on all property was 
reduced by a third.^ The next year — when the favorable con- 
dition of the State finances allowed the removal of the extra 
duties and taxes laid for redeeming the bills of credit — was 
passed the act wdiicli forbade the introduction by land or 
water of any slave for sale. A citizen of the United States 
who might come to Maryland to live, and should actually live 
there a year, could bring in any slaves who had belonged to 
him elsewhere — if they had been in the country for three 
years. The previous whereabouts of the slave was to be fully 
proven to the collector. Servants of travelers were specially 

1 This act (1780, 8,) is entitled an Act for sinking the quota of Maryland 
of the bills of credit issued by Congress. It put a duty, also, on iron and 
tobacco exported, a tax on marriage licenses, &c., &c. The title of 1771 
(7) is simply to place an extra duty on negroes imported. Payment under 
1780, 8, was in pounds currency. 

« 1782, 50, 54. 



46 The Negro in Maryland. 

exempted, but they could not remain indefinitely, or be sold 
in the State. And any slave imported contrary to law was to 
be set free/ The number of blacks had grown to be about 
eighty thousand, nearly a half of the number of whites. 
They had increased faster than the whites during the preced- 
ing decade, if we may trust the estimates of population. 

The wishes of the Colonies, now the States, had changed 
during the century. The result of the change is well known : 
how negroes were forced on the southern Colonies — despite 
frequent remonstrance from some of them — by the mother 
country.^ Virginia had been foremost in remonstrance, and 
now forbade all slave trade from without her borders, in 1778. 
The Maryland Act of 1783 was much the same as this Vir- 
ginia Act of 1778; but the high duty of 1780 on negroes 
fresh from abroad was practically a prohibition of the foreign 
trade. Aside from the duties, we find no remonstrance against 
the slave trade on the part of the colonial Assemblies of Mary- 
land. Later, when the question of the prohibition of the 
foreign trade was before Congress, the Assembly of Maryland 
resolved, in 1805, that their senators and representatives 
should be instructed and requested to use their utmost exer- 
tions to obtain an amendment to the Constitution, by which 
Congress, when it was deemed expedient, could put an end to 
all further importation. And the same resolution was sent to 
the Governors of all the States, with the request tiiat it be laid 
before the different Legislatures, for their concurrence and 
adoption. Again, the next year, similar messages were sent 
the Maryland congressmen, declaring the prohibition of the 
slave trade to be a most desirable measure.^ 



' 1783, 23; 1782, 29. Scliarfs History of Maryland, III, 291, says that 
a bill against im[)ortation was presented in tiie House in 1767, but was not 
passed. Tlie manuscript Journals of Assembly do not give any session 
that year. 

«See Bancroft. Part III, ch. 16. 

^Res., 1805, 11, 12; 1806, 6, 14. 



Slaves. 47 

The old duty of forty shillings was not collected, as we 
have seen, on slaves brought into Maryland by citizens who 
had estates in other colonies or by persons about to become 
residents. But all importations had to be entered at the cus- 
toms, and no slave could be sold for three years. The act of 
1783 allowed importation to residents only, and limited it 
then, to slaves who had been in the country for some time, 
and who were not for sale. But some fault was soon found 
with such sweeping restrictions. Several citizens of Virginia 
who owned lands in Maryland asked leave of the Assembly 
to bring in some of their slaves from Virginia, to cultivate 
those lands. A bill in their favor passed the House but was 
defeated in the Senate. For several years following, similar 
bills were similarly defeated. One citizen of Maryland, who 
had married a Virginian who held slaves in trust, and had 
also carried certain slaves into Virginia, received permission 
in 1791, by a special act, to import all these slaves. The 
Senate then urged upon the House a bill amending the law 
of 1783. Should we reciprocate, reads their message, the 
privileges given by Virginia, and allow Virginians to bring 
their slaves over the Potomac, under careful restrictions, 
surely " no political disadvantage will accrue " to Maryland. 
Whereupon the House passed the bills — by a vote of thirty- 
eight to seventeen — so that citizens of Maryland holding land, 
in their own or in their wives' rights, in Virginia, Delaware 
or Peunsylvania, and owning slaves employed on those lands, 
might bring these slaves into Maryland, to be worked for 
their benefit, and not to be sold ; and provided, further, that 
the slaves were residents, or children of residents, of the 
States mentioned, before 1783. Citizens might bring in, also, 
any such slaves acquired by inheritance or marriage in other 
States. And Virginians holding lands in Maryland might 
bring in their slaves, to cultivate these. To prevent fraud, 
the slaves — as well as the title to them, if acquired by inheri- 
tance or marriage — had to be recorded in all cases at the county 
office ; and they could then be carried to and fro, at the 



48 The Negro in Maryland. 

pleasure of the owner.^ The next year, a former citizen of 
Maryland who had been living in Delaware for two years, 
obtained an act to allow him to bring back the negroes he 
had taken away with him, and their issue. The proprietors 
of several iron works which lay near together on both sides 
of the Potomac, were allowed to carry back and forth male 
slaves used on the works, provided that no Virginia slaves 
should be sold in Maryland unless under ^eri facias. Slaves 
could also^ be carried to and fro, by certain parties, between 
Maryland, Virginia and Washington, for work on certain 
public buildings ; but they were to be removed from Mary- 
land within a year from the completion of the work, or they 
would become free.^ Further doubts as to the act of 1783 
were settled by a provision, of 1794, that residence of a year 
in Maryland, by persons coming there to settle, was not neces- 
sary before slaves could be imported ; but no slaves or their 
increase, so brought in, could be sold until the importer had 
lived in Maryland for three years, barring the case of dispo- 
sition by will or at law/ Since 1783, slaves could be brought 
^- to Maryland by citizens of the United States only. In 1792, 
some of the French inhabitants of the West India Islands 
fled from the revolutions there to Maryland. So a new law^ 
declared that such French subjects who should settle in Mary- 
land during the disturbances at home might retain their slaves, 
but the number that they could keep, after the expiration of a 
year from their coming, was limited to five domestic servants 
to the master of a family, and three to a single man ; while 



1 House Journals, 1787, p. Ill; 1788, 52; 1789, 31 ; 1791, ch. 19, 57. 

' 1792, 45, 48. 

*1792, 75. This was not to become a law unless a similar act was passed 
by Va. 

* 1794, 43. See also 4 H. & McH., 143. 

*1792, 56. When the act was repealed, five years later, the authorities 
of Baltimore were authorized to rid the city of any of these slaves who 
niif;;iit Ite deemed dangerous to the peace; for it was said that many of 
them had been disorderly and were under suspicion. (1797, 75.) 



Slaves. 49 

any surplus slaves, not exported, became free. Such French- 
men as merely sojourned in Maryland could keep the same 
number for their own use, but could not dispose of them. 

When the House of Delegates received petitions in 1795 
from certain residents of Charles and Prince George's coun- 
ties, for changes in the law so as to allow the introduction of 
slaves — by land, we presume — the committee reported that 
they were opposed, " upon principles of policy," to an entire 
repeal of the law, but advised that it be made more clear and 
explicit. In the next year a petition was received from a cit- 
izen of Talbot county, that he might bring back to Maryland 
a negro whom his mother had carried away, and in whom he 
had certain rights. It was found that the slave had been 
removed during the infancy of the petitioner, at a time when 
he could give no consent. The committee, again, and this 
time with success, urged a general law. The act of 1796, 
which, in many ways, long remained the law, reiterated the 
prohibition of the importation of any slave by land or water, 
for sale — declaring, as before, that such slaves should be 
thereby free — but provided that citizens of the United States, 
coming to Maryland to settle, could bring in within a year 
any slaves which they owned at the time of their removal, if 
the slave or the mother of the slave had resided in the United 
States for three whole years previous ; but neither the slaves 
nor their increase could be sold — except in settlement of an 
estate or by process at law — until the importer had lived in 
Maryland for three years. Travelers had to carry their ser- 
vants away with them. If a slave were carried away by any 
person during the infancy of, or without the consent of, the 
real owner, that owner might bring the slave back at any 
time.' A resident of Maryland, possessed by inheritance, in 



1 House Journal, Nov., 1795, pp. 6-29; 1796, 57, &c. Acts of 1796, ch. 
67. As to freedom from importation, the Court of Appeals held, in 1820, 
that this applied to voluntary importation on the master's part only. 5 H. 
& J., 69. 

4 



50 The Negro in Maryland. 

his own or his wife's right, of lands in an adjoining State, 
and of slaves used on those lands, might bring the slaves into 
Maryland to his own land^ for his own benefit and not for 
sale. Conversely, a resident of an adjoining State possessed 
by inheritance of lands in Maryland and the owner of slaves 
at home, might import the slaves, to work them on those 
lands only.^ In both cases, the slaves must have been resi- 
dents, or descendents of residents, of the States in question, 
before 1783. And careful record had to be made, within 
three months, in the county office.^ After the slaves had 
been properly recorded, they might be removed as often as 
the owner should choose without repeated record. Any citi- 
zen of Maryland who acquired property, by marriage, bequest, 
in course of distribution or as guardians, in any slave who 
was a resident, or the descendant of a resident, of the United 
States before 1783, might remove such slave into Maryland 
for the purpose only of employment for his own benefit, and 
not for sale. Such slaves had also to be properly recorded ; 
and they could not be sold for three years. Over twenty 
years later,^ there was added the condition, that slaves so 
imported should be used by the importer only in his own 
immediate service and not for any other purpose whatever. 
By a supplementary act of 1797,^ executors and administra- 
tors of citizens who should remove into Maryland and die 
within a year, might import within a year any slaves, with 
their issue, that had belonged to the deceased and had them- 
selves, or their mothers, been residents of the United States 



^ By 1798, 76, citzens of Maryland or of an adjoining State, inheriting 
lands in Md. or the adjoining State, and owning slaves used on them, 
might import the slaves for use on their own lands. 

* If the slaves were acquired by inheritance, the testator's name, the date 
and place of record of the will, nuist all be recorded ; when by marriage, 
the name of the person from Avhom the title was derived, was necessary. 

^ 1818, 201. It was further declared that such- slaves did not have to be 
brought in within any limited time. 

*1797, 15. 



Slaves. 51 

for three years previous. So, guardians of the children of 
such citizens might import such slaves within a year from 
the beginning of their trust ; and the children on becoming 
of age, might also bring in such slaves and their issue, within 
a year. 

We have noted that occasionally, under authority of special 
acts, slaves were brought from Virginia to Maryland for speci- 
fied occupations and for limited times. Thus, in 1794, leave 
was given the Potomac Company to import slaves, with the 
condition that they would be freed, if not removed within a 
year from the completion of the work in hand. Several years 
after, as several citizens of Maryland were in the habit of 
hiring out their slaves to this same Company in Virginia, and 
as doubts had arisen whether the slaves could be brought back 
after a year's residence away, without being entitled to free- 
dom, a further act declared that slaves might be hired out to 
the Company, but that they should be deemed free unless 
returned within a year from the end of the work. It appeared 
proper, so reads the act, that citizens of Maryland might have 
the privilege of hiring their slaves to the best advantage, 
" when no injury to the State can result therefrom." When, 
in 1803, a citizen of Virginia petitioned the Maryland House 
of Delegates for leave to bring in certain negroes, the com- 
mittee of the House reported that it was inexpedient to extend 
the privilege of importation.^ The proprietors of a stage line 
between Philadelphia and Norfolk, got leave in 1799 to use 
their slaves as drivers, to and from Maryland, on condition 
that every driver be duly recorded. In that portion of Mary- 
land ceded to the District of Columbia, a number of slaves, 
belonging to citizens of Maryland, had been hired out or 
otherwise employed. An Act of 1802 allowed the importa- 
tion of such slaves, and their issue ; and it was further made 
lawful for citizens of Maryland and of that part of the Dis- 
trict which had been ceded by Maryland, to remove to and 

^ House Journal, 1803, 79. 



52' The Negro in Maryland. 

from the District at pleasure such slaves, and their descen- 
dants, as had been brought into the District from Maryland.^ 
Other border counties found the law oppressive ; and it was 
finally enacted, in 1812, that slaves might be hired out in 
any adjoining county of another State^where the laws of 
that State did not forbid — as often as the owner wished ; and, 
conversely, slaves owned in the adjoining counties could be 
brought into Maryland, to be hired out. In either case, no 
record had to be made, but the slaves must be returned within 
a year.^ 



Hardly had the Revolution ceased when a number of citi- 
zens of Maryland began active efforts to abolish slavery. 
Some were political leaders. Many of them were of the Society 
of Friends. In December, 1785, the House of Delegates 
received the petitions of several citizens of Queen Anne's, 
Kent, Caroline, Dorchester, Worcester, Talbot and other coun- 
ties, relative to an abolition of slavery. These petitions were 
read a second time on the day following, and were rejected by 
a vote of thirty-two to twenty-two. It is interesting to note 
that the votes of the members from the counties named — and 
many delegates were not present — were abont equally divided, 
pro and con.^ Two years later there was presented to the 
House an address and petition for the emancipation of slaves, 
from the yearly meeting of the Friends in Baltimore ; but 
these were refused also, by thirty votes to seventeen.^ The 
Maryland society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery and 
the Relief of poor Negroes and others unlawfully held in Bond- 

1 1802, 68. See 3 H. & J., 379, 382 ; 1813, 56. 

M812, 76. 

' House Journsil, 1785, pp. 36-39. Of four of the largest slave-holding 
counties, Calvert, Charles, Prince George's and St. Mary's, only one of the 
delegates present voted to receive the petitions. 

* House Journal, 1787, pp. 34-36. 



Slaves. 53 

age, was organized in 1789. Its membership was soon between 
two and three hundred, and a building in Baltimore was 
devoted to its use. Its work began at once by a petition pre- 
sented to the House of Delegates, on November 12th. On 
the next day the House received, also, an address of the 
Friends, of the same purport. These were referred to a com- 
mittee of seven members, who reported the next day, through 
Mr. William Pinkney. It should be the wish of every free 
community, they said, to bring about the abolition of slavery. 
As both a sudden and compulsory abolition are exceptionable 
— the former being dangerous, the latter in violation of 
acquired rights — no opportunity should be neglected of attain- 
ing abolition " by silent and gradual steps, with the consent 
of the owner." So, all restriction should be removed from 
the voluntary emancipation of slaves.^ Within a week, a bill 
was introduced in the Senate, to promote the gradual abolition 
of slavery, and to prevent the rigorous exportation of blacks 
from Maryland. It was read the first time and laid on the 
table. Consideration of it was postponed, some days later, to 
the first week in December. It was then committed to Mr. 
Nicholas Hammond, who had introduced it, together with Mr. 
Charles Carroll and Mr. John Hall, with the resolution to 
request the House of Delegates to appoint a committee for 
conference. Accordingly, the following message, brought in by 
Mr. Charles Carroll, was sent to the House the following day : 
"A Bill for the gradual abolition of slavery, and for pre- 
venting the rigorous exportation of negroes and mulattoes 
from this State, has been originated in this House, and lain 
some time for consideration. The great importance of this 
subject, whether considered with a view to the persons whom 
it concerns, or to the advantage and happiness of the commu- 
nity at large, appears to be such as to require peculiar investi- 
gation, and the most serious attention of the legislature. 



^ In 1752, manumission in any way during the last illness of the master 
had been forbidden. 



54 The Negro in Maryland. 

HeDce it is conceived that a discussion of this subject by a 
joint committee of both Houses will be proper, that by a 
candid exchange of sentiments such a system may be reported 
as will be thought most agreeable, as well to the sense of both 
branches of the legislature as to the sense of our fellow citi- 
zens." But this proposition of the Senate the House refused 
by a vote of thirty-nine to fifteen.^ The members from the 
large slave-holding counties voted against it, and those from 
the others were divided. The Senate ordered that the bill be 
referred to the next Assembly. At the next session the Senate 
received a petition from the Abolition Society, and referred it 
to the House. When this petition was read the House voted, 
by twenty-six to twenty-two, to refer it to a committee. 
There was then put the question, that the committee be in- 
structed to express their disapprobation of that part of the 
petition which referred to the gradual abolition of slavery ; 
but this was defeated by a plurality of two votes. And nothing 
further seems to have been done at that session.^ But the 
work of the abolition societies had not been in petitions alone. 
In 1791 the House of Delegates received complaints against 
the society in Baltimore for its interference between certain 
slaves and their masters. The committee on Grievances and 
Courts of Justice, to whom the matter was referred, reported 
that the owners had been unjustly brought to much unneces- 
sary trouble and expense. So large and influential was this 
Abolition Society that an individual who should be brought 
to law with it had better give up his slave than defend his 
rights. In this case the Society had acted in an indecent and 



'House Journal, 1789, pp. 10-14, 64-5. Senate Journal, 1789, 5-34. A 
letter in Hazard's Register (Vol. X, 411) from a gentleman of Baltimore, 
written in 1832, states that Ciiarles, Carroll of Carrollton, introduced in the 
Senate of Maryland, in 1797, a bill by which all female slave children 
were to be bought by the State, educated and bound out to the age of 28, 
when they were to be free ; and other slaves under 45 were to be free at a 
certain time. This, we presume, was the plan of Mr. Carroll in 1789, as 
the Senate Journal for 1797 does not make any mention of abolition. 

'Senate Journal, 1790, Nov. loth. 



Slaves. 55 

unjustifiable manner — so said the committee. The House, after 
considering the representations of the Society in defence, voted 
by a large plurality that its action could in no way be 
justified upon any principle by which good citizens ought to 
be moved. Although a resolve that the Society had become 
unnecessary, oppressive and repugnant in principles to the laws 
of the State, was lost by three votes, the work of the Society 
as a body had to be discontinued. Other societies were formed 
of not large membership. A number of slaves were assisted 
to get freedom, and a few petitions and memorials sent to the 
legislators from time to time, but only to meet with disap- 
proval.^ 

During this period, however, there was a noticeable increase 
in the number of slaves manumitted. Manumission by will 
or otherwise during the last illness of the master, which had 
been forbidden in 1752, was allowed once more by the general 
act of 1796, on Slaves — by amendment of the Senate. 

When, in 1823, a communication was received in the House 
of Delegates from the Governor of Ohio, on gradual emanci- 
pation in the United States, the committee of the House 
reported that they deemed it inexpedient then to express their 
views thereon.^ In the Assembly of 1827, there was pre- 
sented to the House a petition of sundry inhabitants of Har- 
ford county, for the abolition of slavery in the State. It was 
referred to a committee of nine — one member from Harford, 
Baltimore, Prince George's, Talbot and Worcester counties, 
each, and two from Cecil and Montgomery. On the day 
following, this committee reported, that they were compelled 
to acknowledge the inexpediency of submitting, at that time, 

1 House Journal, 1791, pp. 82-106. Griffith's Annals of Baltimore, 127. 
Poole's Abolition Societies, 72. House Journal, 1791, 19, 31, 38 ; do. 1792, 24 ; 
do. 1801, 66. Mr. Jefferson stated that there was not as much disposition for 
abolition in Maryland as in Virginia. We may add that there was very 
little in Virginia, however much many leaders like Mr. Jefferson may have 
desired it. 

* House Journal, 1823, 139. 



56 The Negro in Maryland. 

any system of legislation for abolishing slavery. But they 
expressed their entire confidence that the time was fast coming 
when Maryland would be relieved, through the plan of col- 
onization, from " this grievous national calamity." " We 
cannot now, for obvious reasons," they continued, " follow 
the examples which have been set us by our sister States to 
the north and east of us. With them the evil to be subdued 
was a pigmy, with us it is a monster ; with them a superflu- 
ous and decaying limb was to be removed ; with us the 
destroying worm is to be sought for in the root. There, the 
system, full of health and vigor, submitted cheerfully to the 
simple cure ; here the disease, exhibiting itself in its greatest 
strength and worst form, must receive a different treatment, 
and be gradually subdued by persevering, but not abrupt 
remedies." ^ This report was read and left, apparently, on 
the table. A memorial was presented in the House, in 1829, 
) from sundry citizens of Frederick county, asking for a law 
which should declare that all children born of slaves should 
be free after a certain time. In 1832, a committee was 
ordered to enquire into the expediency of such legislation, 
but there seems to have been no result.^ An amendment 
was added to the State constitution in 1837, to the effect that 
the relation of master and slave should not be abolished 
unless a bill for the purpose should be passed by an unani- 
mous vote in each branch of the Assembly, and should then 
be published at least three months before a new election of 
delegates, and should be then confirmed by unanimous votes of 
the Houses in the next session thereafter ; nor then, without full 
compensation to the master for the property of which he 
would be deprived. 

Exactly how far the feelings of the people of ]SIaryland 
were voiced in these actions of their legislators, is as hard to 
judge to-day — as it is hard to learn whether the " sundry 



1 House Journal, 1827, 320, 342. 
"House Journal, 1829, 427; 1832, 89. 



Slaves. . 57 

citizens " who signed these abolition petitions were six or a 
score or a whole community. There were citizens, and some 
of them prominent citizens, always ready and anxious to fur- 
ther any steps towards gradual abolition, but the people of 
Maryland, as a whole, did not care evidently to do away with 
slavery, or felt unable to solve the problems that a larger free 
black population would bring, or looked too long and too 
trustingly to colonization as the remedy for the evil/ 



Several eiforts were made, also — especially at the same 
time with those early efforts for abolition — to restrict or pre- 
vent exportation of slaves from Maryland. In 1789, in the 
House of Delegates, Mr. Pinkney had spoken of this as a 
species of traffic inhuman in itself, and disgraceful to the gov- 
ernment.^ Two years later, several petitions were presented 
in the House, from the Friends, from the Abolition Society 
in Baltimore, and from certain citizens of Caroline and 
Kent counties, for legislation to prevent the exportation of 
slaves and free negroes. These were referred to a committee 
of seven — one member, each, from Baltimore town, Baltimore 
county, Annapolis, Queen Anne's and Harford counties, and 



^ In 1830, there were several anti-slavery organizations in Baltimore — 
a " National Anti-Slavery Tract Society," a Branch of the Society of Md., 
&c. — but these seem to have been small and of little vitality, A small 
number of prominent citizens of Baltimore and the counties associated 
together, in 1846, to initiate a movement towards gradual emancipation ; 
but public opinion, in the growing hostility between North and South, 
would not support any such plan, and it was abandoned as wholly imprac- 
ticable. (Baltimore and the 19th of April: Hon. Geo. W. Brown, p. 113.) 

Note resolutions of the Assemblies — 1841, 16; 1843, 57; 1849, 37. 

We may add that the Bill of Eights of Maryland, of 1776, did not state 
that all men were free and equal — as did the Bill of Rights of Virginia 
and the Declaration of Independence. It gave to "every freeman" remedy 
at law for injury to person or property, &c. 

* House Journal, 1789, 9-14. 



58 The Negro in Maryland. 

two from Dorchester, headed by Mr. Pinkney. In a few 
days, they reported that they could not conceive how, while 
the citizens of Maryland continued to hold slaves — a property 
recognized by law and secured by the Constitution — the ex- 
portation of slaves could with any warrant be prohibited. 
They did not see that justice or policy required such an inter- 
ference with the rights of the community. Nor could they 
forbear from suggesting that such petitions would only make 
worse rather than better the condition of the slaves, by tend- 
ing to destroy the spirit of acquiescence among them, by which 
alone their happiness could be secured, and to fill them with 
regret for evils that did not admit a remedy.^ With this 
report the House concurred. At the next session, another 
memorial of the Friends was received, read and referred, but 
with no result. In 1800, there was received a petition from 
sundry inhabitants of Kent and Queen Anne's counties, for an 
act to prohibit the sale of slaves — without the State only, pre- 
sumably. This was referred to a committee of seven, two from 
Anne Arundel, two from Kent, and one each from Charles, 
Dorchester and Queen Anne's counties. Over a week later, this 
committee reported that they had given the subject the serious 
consideration which its importance merited. They considered 
that the property in slaves acquired by citizens of Maryland, 
under the faith of laws existing before the Kevolution, and 
sanctioned by express compact on the adoption of the new gov- 
ernment, was secured by society to individuals on the general 
basis of property. And Avhcre the rights of such individuals are 
to be resumed by the public for the general advantage, a reason- 
able compensation must be made. They would not deny the 
power of the legislature to meet any great regulations of civil 
policy which the uncertain events attending every social institu- 
tion might render necessary, particularly such an institution as 
slavery with them ; but, as they were not aware of the neces- 
sity then of any such changes, they could not consent to pro- 

' House Journal, 1798, 19, 31, 38. 



Slaves. 59 

hibit generally that use of their property which the needs of 
slave-owners might make indispensable. Nor did they believe 
that the transportation of the blacks to a warmer climate more 
suited to their physical natures, was either inhuman to the 
blacks or impolitic to the State. They deemed the gradual 
diminution of the black population of Maryland — a people 
so different by nature from the whites — and a substitution in 
their place of a white yeomanry, to be objects highly desirable. 
Yet, with all this, they could not for a moment doubt that the 
right of property in slaves is, and ought to be, a right limited 
by the laws of humanity and Christianity. The legislature is 
bound to repress vices of cruelty, and to encourage charity and 
philanthropy. While they would refuse to prohibit generally 
the sale and transportation of slaves to the South, they would 
so far restrain the same as to prevent the violation of those 
ties of nature which even savage man respects, and which 
society should protect with a religious reverence. And to this 
end they offered the resolution, that a law should prohibit the 
sale — except in consequence of the commission of some crime 
or offense — of any slave to be carried out of Maryland, by 
which an acknowledged husband or wife, according to the 
relations customary among slaves, would be separated from 
each other, or by which a mother would be separated from a 
child under a certain age. This report was read, but nothing 
seems to have resulted from it.^ The next year the House 
received further memorials of the same purport from the 
Friends and sundry citizens. After some weeks a similar 
resolution was reported, fixing the limit of age under which a 
child could not be taken from its mother at ten years. But 
this resolution was rejected by a vote of thirty-eight to twenty- 
one.^ In 1818 a petition from citizens of Washington county, 
that the existing traffic in slaves might be restricted, was 
likewise referred to a committee ; but without result. In 



1 House Journal, 1800, 58, 77. 

* House Journal, 1801, 44, 66, 80-84. 



60 The Negro in Maryland. 

1832 there was presented a petition from the justices of the 
orphans' court of Somerset county and certain citizens of Som- 
erset and Worcester, for an act to restrain registers of wills 
from engaging in the purchase of negroes for transportation 
and sale. The committee on Grievances and Courts reported 
against the petition/ By this time the policy of the State 
was to free itself as much as possible of the black population. 
Any slaves for life could be carried out or sold away from the 
State, except such as were brought in for the purpose of trans- 
portation and sale. 

As manumissions increased there was an increase in the 
number of those slaves who were to be free at a certain time. 
During their terms of service they were as other slaves. The 
law provided for the careful record of the deeds under which 
they were to be free, and that those who were brought 
into Maryland, being slaves for a term of years only by the law 
of the State whence they came, should serve for the prescribed 
length of time only. It is easy to see how injustice might 
arise from the transportation and sale elsewhere of these blacks, 
as slaves for life. As early as 1789, the attention of the 
House of Delegates was called by the Society of Friends and 
by others, to the exportation by fraud or violence of slaves 
for terms of years ; and a committee stated that the honor of 
the State was deeply concerned in giving exemplary punish- 
ment to such a practice. For a generation thereafter, eiforts 
for stringent and effective legislation were frequently made, 
especially by the Society of Friends.^ The general act of 
1796 gave a penalty of eight hundred dollars — or work on the 
road for not over five years, in default — for anyone who might 
transport, knowingly, from the State, and sell as a slave for life, 
any black entitled to freedom at any age. And there was the 
same penalty for bringing in and selling such in the State. 



• House Journal, 1818, 96 ; 1832, 204. 

-House Journal, 1789, 9-14; 1790; 1791, 31 ; 1795, 53, 65; 1803, 15, 18, 
&c. 



Slaves. 61 

But a committee of the House of Delegates reported, in 1801, 
that the removal of these servants and other acts of inhuman- 
ity to the unhappy blacks called loudly for the interposition 
of the legislature ; on which the House went to the extent of 
resolving, by vote of fifty-four to five, that the severest penal- 
ties should prevent the sale, South, of slaves for terms of 
years. Finally, in 1810, there was enacted that no such slaves 
should be sold to anyone who had not been a bona fide resi- 
dent of Maryland for a year. The penalty, as for any sale for 
a longer term than that which the black had to serve, was 
five hundred dollars. That for actual kidnapping had been 
fixed the year before at between two and ten years imprison- 
ment.^ During the session of 1816, the House passed, by a 
vote of thirty-four to twenty-three, a bill which required the 
formality of a bill of sale, acknowledged before witnesses and 
containing a description of the slaves transferred, in the case 
of sale and removal of slaves where the person about to remove 
them had not been for two years an actual resident of the 
county where they had been held. This was defeated in the 
Senate by a tie vote. But an act of the next session pro- 
vided that purchasers of any slaves for removal from the State 
should take copies of duly acknowledged and recorded bills of 
sale, in which the slaves should be identified. A slave for a 
term of years could not be sold to any other than a resident of 
the State of over a year's standing ; nor could a resident pur- 
chase as agent for a non-resident, under penalty, in either case, 
to seller or buyer, of not over two years' imprisonment. And 
all sales of slaves for terms of years were clothed with the 
formalities of bills in writing, under hand and seal of the pur- 
chaser, and of the seller or his agent; which should give the 
term of service, the interest of the seller, and the residence of 
the purchaser ; and should be duly acknowledged before a jus- 
tice of the county, and be recorded within twenty days. If 



1 See 1783, ch. 23 ; 1790, 9 ; 1796, 67 ; 1804, 90 ; 1810, 15. Act on Crimes, 
1809, 38. 



62 The Negro in Maryland. 

these formalities were fraudulently omitted, the servant became 
free ; and magistrates were authorized to examine any persons 
on whom reasonable suspicions were fastened. The penalties 
of this act were extended in 1834 to all cases where a resi- 
dent of Maryland should purchase or receive, knowingly, 
with the intention of sending away, a slave for a term of 
years ; and where residents should remove and then sell such 
slaves, taken with them.^ These formalities for the sale of 
slaves entitled to freedom, and the penalty of not over two 
years' imprisonment for any illegal sale of them, remained 
the law. But notoriously vicious servants were often sold, 
for transportation, under the authority of the courts, by act of 
1833 — the court being satisfied that the master had warned 
the slave of that penalty, and the slave being provided 
with an authorized copy both of the order of the court and 
of his title to freedom. 

We find the Assembly of 1818 giving permission to a resi- 
dent of Cecil county to remove a Hegro girl, a slave for a 
term of years, to Pennsylvania, on condition that he give 
bond with security, not to sell or remove her out of that State. 
So, in 1829, certain trustees were allowed to sell several 
negroes for their unexpired time of service, in DelaM'are — 
but to no other than an actual resident of that State ; and the 
conditions of the permission of sale were to be mentioned in 
the bill of sale.; and they must secure a bond for one thou- 



1 House Journal 1816, 98. 1817, ch. 112; 1834, 266. The luininuim im- 
prisonment became eighteen montlis. A society called the Protection 
Society was organized at Baltimore about 1817. Many valuable blacks 
were aided, and incorrigible servants were quietly transported. (Griffith's 
Baltimore.) A bill for a " Protection Society of Kent county " was rejected 
by the Senate in 1827. A few years later, a number of slaves were bought 
in Maryland, to be taken to Louisiana ; but difficulties arising at the custom 
house in Baltimore, owing to the informalities in the bill of sale, the matter 
was carried before a justice of the city court. As the negroes, on being 
examined, acknowledged themselves to be slaves, a special act of the 
Assembly allowed the transportation as if the bill had been drawn according 
to the forms j)rescribed by law. (1821, 15.) 



Slaves, 63 

sand dollars, with good security living in Maryland, that the 
slaves should not be removed from Delaware during the time 
of service. And the act declared, further, that the trustees or 
their heirs might maintain an action on the bond, should 
the slaves be removed, and any damages would be used 
in bringing back their slaves and for their further benefit. 
In another case, a citizen of Delaware was allowed to take 
from Maryland a negro woman, in whom he owned an unex- 
pired term, on condition that he first gave bond with security, 
to be kept in the clerk's office of the county from which the 
slave was removed, that he would not keej) her in servitude 
after the expiration of her term of service. Again, a citizen 
of Prince George's county was authorized to sell a negro 
woman out of Maryland, if he specified in the bill of sale 
that she was to be free at a certain time, and if he took 
security from the buyer that she should not be disposed of for 
longer servitude. Another citizen of the same county was 
given leave, two years later, to take with him to Virginia his 
servant for a term of years, provided the negro should appear 
in person before the orphans' court and signify his willingness 
to go, and also that the master should furnish him with a cer- 
tified copy, under seal, of the instrument under which he was 
entitled to freedom. Again, in 1840, a special act allowed 
the removal of a girl to Virginia, provided that she should 
give her consent, and that the master should first file -with the 
county clerk a satisfactory bond to the State of Maryland for 
one thousand dollars, with security from a citizen of Mary- 
land, for the faithful and safe return of the girl to the State 
by the master or his executors as soon as she finished her term 
of service, should she then desire to return. She must return, 
if at all, within twelve months after becoming free. And in 
case she desired to return but was detained, the district attor- 
ney must bring suit on the bond, and any money recovered 
should be used for the Colonization Society. Before she left, 
the county clerk was to give her, at the expense of her master, 
a certified record of her right to freedom. Thus several 



64 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

exceptions to the laws were made. But all petitions for spe- 
cial acts were not granted. A bill passed the House, in 1835, 
to allow a certain clergyman to carry out of Maryland a col- 
ored apprentice, the son of free parents ; but the Senate would 
not pass it. Two years later, a bill was introduced in the 
House to allow a certain resident of Prince George's county to 
carry with him to Mississippi a servant for a term of years. 
By the recommendation of the committee on Colored Popula- 
tion, these bills were amended so as to require the master both 
to give bond in the sum of two thousand dollars, that he or 
his heirs or executors would liberate the slave at the proper 
time, and in all respects comply with the conditions of the 
permission given him, and, also, to have a copy of the per- 
mission recorded in the office of the county in Mississippi to 
which he should remove. This bill the Senate rejected; and 
refused to reconsider, when asked by the House.^ 



In 1820, a bill was introduced in the Senate, to repeal all 
laws that forbade the importation of slaves into Maryland, 
provided that no slave imported should be manumitted withhi 
ten years. This bill passed the Senate by a vote of seven to 
five, but was defeated in the House. Two years later, leave 
was asked in the House for a bill of similar purport, but the 
committee reported that the laws were satisfactory in giving 
sufficient latitude for importation. The House refused to 
agree to this by a vote of thirty-seven to thirty-four; and 
then the bill was referred to the next Assembly. There, a 
bill was again passed in the Senate and defeated in the House." 
From time to time, special acts allowed the importation of 



»See 1818, ch. 205; 1829, 2,55; 1831,233; 1834, 1 ; 1836, 201; 1840, 111. 
House .Journal, 1837, 56, 165, 208. 

'Senate Journal, 1820, 19. House Journal, 1820, 82; 1822, 162. Senate 
Journal, 1823, 18. 



Slaves. 65 

slaves, in answer to the petitions of the owners. And not a 
few such petitions were rejected.^ In 1823, as — so the pre- 
amble of the act reads — the numerous special acts of legisla- 
tion had been of great expense to the State, and no incon- 
venience could occur from a general law embracing most cases 
— there was enacted that any citizen of Maryland who acquired 
" by marriage, bequest, course of distribution, or as guardian, 
or by gift, or in any other lawful manner," any slave, a resi- 
dent of the United States, might at any time bring such 
slave into the State for the purpose only of employment there 
" for his own immediate service." Slaves so brought in had 
to be recorded. They could be neither sold nor manumitted 
until they had been residents for three years. There seems 
to have been some doubt, thereafter, as to whether slaves 
imported under this act could be hired out within three years. 
One special act allowed certain negroes who had been brought 
back to Maryland with their owners, then minors, to be hired 
out, without danger of their freedom being thereby acquired. 
Another allowed a citizen of Harford county to hire out sev- 
eral negroes, "in the same manner in which he might or could 
have done had the said negroes been born slaves " within the 
State. Again, the executors of a citizen of Maryland who 
had died in Florida, were given permission to import certain 
slaves belonging to the estate, and to hire out or sell them, as 
directed in the will, as if they had never been out of Mary- 
land.^ But — the Legislature having been roused by the South- 
ampton insurrection — the proviso was added, that, if the 



^ For instance, leave was asked to introduce in the House, in 1829, a bill 
to authorize one of the members, from Caroline county, to bring into the 
State, as a hireling, a negro to work at a forge. Leave was then refused. 
Later, a bill was reported, by leave ; was then amended, to limit the privi- 
lege of keeping the black to five years ; and was finally rejected. (House 
Journal, 1829, 176, 359.) The acts varied considerably in particulars, such 
as the times within which the slaves must be registered at the county 
clerk's. 

2 1823, 87; 1827, 176; 1831, 10, 273. 

5 



66 The Negro in Maryland. 

negroes should refuse to go to Liberia, they should be sold 
out of the State. 

The slaughter of a number of white persons of Southampton 
county, Virginia, in the summer of 1831, by the negro Nat. 
Turner and a few followers, roused the attention of the whole 
country. This so-called insurrection was wholly local, was 
put down at once, and showed no tendency in the slaves as a 
people to rebel against their masters. But many empty rumors 
of uprisings went abroad, far beyond Southampton county. 

The year 1831 is a landmark in all legislation in Mary- 
land aifecting the wegro, slave and free. It was then that the 
State actively took up the policy of the colonization in Africa 
of its free blacks. There was further enacted — it was the 
autumn of 1831 — that it should not be lawful after the first of 
June following to import into Maryland any slave for sale or 
to reside there. This did not apply, however, to the rights of 
non-residents, under laws then in force, to remove their slaves 
to or from islands belonging to them in the Potomac. Nor should 
the act prevent persons who lived in Maryland, or an adjoining 
State, and held land in the two States, not over ten miles apart, 
from removing their slaves to and from those lands, solely for 
the cultivation of the same. Such slaves so brought in must 
be recorded within thirty days with the county clerk. Any 
person importing a slave contrary to the act should forfeit the 
slave, who, in turn, would be entitled to freedom on condition 
that he consent to be sent to Liberia or to leave Maryland at 
once.^ Otherwise he was to be sold by the sheriff to the Col- 



^ 1831, 323. The Court of Appeals held, in 1837, that the importation 
of a slave contrary to this act, so as to entitle the slave to freedom, must be 
by the owner or with his approbation or authority. (8 G. & J., 269.) 

If a slave returned from another State where he had resided, even with 
his owner's pernii.ssion, the owner could not hold him — thougii the return 
was against the master's con,->ent. (U G. «& J., 14. 1837.) 

But the Act of 1831 did not prevent owners from sending away, or taking 
away their slaves, to travel, or sojourn temporarily. The plan of perma- 
nent residence elsewhere must actually be cousuunnated. (9 G. & J., 127.) 



Slaves. 67 

onization Society, for the sum of five dollars and prison fees, to 
be carried to Liberia. If the Society would not take him he was 
to be sold, on condition that the purchaser would take him 
beyond Maryland to reside. All justices of the peace were 
bidden to hold for court, and, if necessary, to commit to jail, 
any persons importing slaves contrary to the law. At the next 
session of Assembly, 1832, the House received some thirty- 
eight petitions for leave to introduce slaves. No special act 
seems to have been passed, but a supplement was added to the 
act of 1831, because — so reads the preamble — the introduction 
of slaves ought to be prohibited except in a few special cases, 
and all cases of hardship should be embraced under one law, 
according to some general principles. The supplement^ declared 
that slaves for life who should be hired out or loaned to service 
for limited times in a State adjoining Maryland, or in the 
District of Columbia, might be returned to Maryland ; but 
the importer must be a resident of Maryland as well as the 
owner of the slaves — at the time both of exportation and 
importation. Persons wlio had already acquired land in Mary- 
land by inheritance or otherwise, or by purchase with intent to 
become residents, and who were about to become such, could 
bring in auy slaves owned by them before the act of 1831 was 
passed ; but the proper record ujust be made and the affidavit 
of the owner given that the conditions of law had been prop- 
erly complied with, and that the slaves were slaves for life, and 
were not imported for sale. Persons living in the District of 
Columbia, east of the Potomac, and holding lands in Maryland, 
might move to those lands from their residence any slaves for 
life, and the increase of such slaves, who had belonged to them 
and lived either in Maryland or the District before the act of 
'31. Also, residents of Maryland removing for a limited time 
to the District, might bring back at pleasure any slaves carried 
with them. Those, too, who owned land in an adjoining State, 



^ 1832, 317. The importation of such hired slaves had been allowed by 
an act passed a month before. (Ch. 40.) 



68 The Negro in Maryland. 

and worked on those lands any slaves who belonged to them 
and had gone from Maryland, might bring back such slaves at 
any time. Citizens of Maryland who should leave home for a 
time, in the service of their State or of the United States might 
bring back with them any slaves for life that they had carried 
away ; and in case of their death, their representatives might 
return them ; but there must be entered on record, before 
removal, the usual list of the slaves, together with a declaration 
of the reasons for the departure from the State, and also of the 
purpose of returning, and another record must be made within 
a month after the return. It was enacted, lastly, that where 
any slave owned in Maryland by a citizen of the State should 
have been married before the law of 1831 — in regular marriage 
ceremony by a minister of some recognized religious body in 
the State — to any slave owned in any adjoining State, it should 
be lawful for the owner of the slave in Maryland to bring 
in the husband or wife. But the fact of the marriage must 
be proven by the purchaser, or some credible white person, and 
put on record within a month. This act was strongly opposed, 
passing the House by a vote of thirty-six to twenty-nine.^ 
At the next session, the Senate passed a bill relaxing some- 
what the strict prohibition of the previous year, but imposing 
a tax on such slaves as might be imported, for the benefit of col- 
onization. The House amended by cutting down the proposed 
taxes by a half, and then passed the bill by a vote of forty-one 
to twenty-eight. It enacted that any citizen of Maryland 
might imj)ort slaves for life acquired in another State by mar- 
riage or bequest, or in course of distribution ; also, that any 
persons residing out of Maryland, and removing there with a 
bona fide intention of becoming citizens of the State, might 
also import their slaves, the intention of residence being shown 



' One member moved to repeal tlie policy of colonization, and State taxes 
for it, :is the passage of this bill of 1832 would admit more blacks tiian were 
removed by 1831, 281. Tlie motion was lost by 45 to 21. The bill 
was introduced by the chairman of the Committee on Colored Population. 



Slaves. 69 

by affidavit duly filed in the county office within a month. In 
all cases, a list of the slaves had to be filed in the county office, 
with a statement that the list was true, and that the slaves were 
not to be sold and were slaves for life ; and at the same time 
there had to be paid for the use of the Colonization Society, the 
sum of fifteen dollars for each slave between the years of twelve 
and forty-five, and five dollars for a slave either younger or 
older.^ There was further enacted the next year, that any 
officer of the army or navy called by the service into Mary- 
land, might bring with him his slaves, on condition that they 
be not sold, and be taken away when he left. A further sup- 
plementary act to the stringent provisions of '31, now allowed 
citizens of Maryland, or of the District of Columbia east of 
the Potomac, who had, or might acquire, lands in the District 
or the State, respectively, to move back ai|d forth at pleasure 
any slaves for life who were natives of the State or of that part 
of the District. Also any resident of Maryland thereafter 
appointed executor, trustee or guardian in the State or an 
adjoining State or District, could carry to and fro from the 
adjoining State or District, and hire out in Maryland, if deemed 
advisable, any slaves for life held in trust, on condition 
of due record in the office of the county to which these might 
be at any time removed. Such slaves, of course, could not be 
sold.^ Certain residents of Charles county had received by 
bequest in Virginia a number of slaves, but had exchanged 
them for others. A special act ended their fears by allowing 
the other slaves to be brought in. Several other acts allowed 
the removal of certain slaves between Maryland and Virginia. 
In one case there was. a proviso that they should be used solely 
for cultivation,^ By the act of 1831, those persons owning 
lands in both Maryland and an adjoining State, not over ten 



^ House Journal, 1833, 205, &c. 1833, ch. 87. A special act also admitted 
nine slaves, on payment of the taxes. The case was not included under the 
provisions of the general act. 

2 1834^ 75, 124, 284. 

=* 1835, 50, 74, 172, 194, 274. 



70 The Negro in Maryland. 

miles apart, might carry their slaves to and fro. The ten mile 
restriction Avas now done away, and citizens of either Maryland 
or Virginia who owned lands in both States anywhere could 
move their slaves at pleasure, paying the taxes for colonization 
when the slaves were recorded.^ As no provision existed for 
the introduction of slaves gotten by gift, there was enacted 
further that any citizen of Maryland might import any slave 
for life, acquired by gift in the United States, but on condition 
not only that the slaves be duly recorded and the colonization 
fees paid, with an oath that the gift was a bona fide one, but 
that none of the slaves or their descendants could be manu- 
mitted in Maryland unless the owner should provide for their 
removal.^ In 1836 the question of changing the laws so as to 
admit slaves without restriction was reported adversely by a 
House committee., It seemed best, they said, to continue the 
policy then being tried, which promised well ; and cases that 
were especially deserving, in the judgment of the Legislature, 
would always find relief.^ But three years later, there was 
enacted that any citizen of Maryland, and any person coming 
to Maryland to reside, might bring in from any part of the 
United States any slave for life. A person moving into the 



^ 1835, 329. Apparently, the tax had to be paid on the first introduction, 
only. A special act, in 1843, allowed a certain citizen of Virginia, owning 
land in Maryland, to move his slaves at pleasure, but limited their use to 
work on those farms, and said the colonization fees need be paid only once. 
(1843, 38.) 

^1835, 61, I. e. Removal under the act of '31, for decreasing the free 
black population, 

3 See House Journal, 1836, 384. 1837, ch. 351 ; 1844, 42 ; 1846, 244. In one 
case, a citizen of Anne Arundel was allowed to bring back from Louisiana 
fifty slaves, who had been taken there for temporary work. Again, a gen- 
tleman of Virginia asked and got leave to bring with hira, whenever he 
wished, a black boy who had been his servant in Maryland, before his 
removal to Virginia. Again, a certain owner of lands in liotii Maryland 
and Delaware could carry to and fro his slaves including children born to 
them in Delaware. At least two slaves owned in Virginia were hired out 
in Maryland, the owners being required to put them on record and pay 
the fees. 



Slaves. 71 

State must file within a month an affidavit of intention of resi- 
dence; and, in all cases, the slaves must be recorded, with 
sworn affidavit, that they were not imported for sale and were 
slaves for life, and the fees for the Colonization Society must 
be paid. Three years later, again, the privilege of carrying to 
and fro slaves for life, from the United States, and not for sale, 
was given to any person entering the State, to remain tempo- 
rarily or permanently, on condition of proper record and pay- 
ment of fees. Thus, step by step, were lessened the stringent 
provisions of '31.^ In 1847 the House committee reported 
unfavorably the suggestion of a repeal of all restrictions; 
but two years later, all laws were repealed which prohibited or 
in any way taxed the importation from any part of the United 
States of any slaves for life. But no slave whatever could be 
imported for the purpose of sale and transportation, under 
penalty — when the slave was actually sold, to be taken away — 
of not less than two nor more than five hundred dollars. Nor 
could any slave sentenced to transportation as a punishment 
for crime, in any other part of the United States, be imported 
into or held in Maryland.^ 

The total amount received by the Colonization Society from 
these duties on the introduction of slaves, during seventeen 
years, had been nearly twelve thousand five hundred dollars 
— the number of slaves brought in must have been a thou- 
sand or more.^ In 1850, there were over ninety thousand 
slaves in the State — some ten thousand less than there had 
been a half century before. In 1860, there were eighty- 
seven thousand. But the free blacks — having increased dur- 



U839, 15; 1842, 213; 1845, 113. 

^ 1849, 165. The penalty for importing a convict slave was from $100 to 
$300 ; for holding one in the State, the loss of the slave, who was sold for 
the benefit of the State. 

The Baltimore Sun of May 2nd, 1851, mentions the arrest of a man for 
importing a slave contrary to law. 

^ Report of Committee on Colored Population to Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1850-51. 



72 The Negro in Maryland. 

ing that decade by three times the decrease in slaves — num- 
bered nearly eighty-four thousand. 

The Code of 1860 read, simply, that anyone could import 
any slave for life from any part of the United States, except 
those who were guilty of any crime, or had been banished from 
Maryland. 



From the very settlement of the Colonies the indentured 
white servants frequently caused their masters vexation and 
loss, by running away. Laws to prevent this were soon made 
in Maryland. Any persons suspected to be runaway servants 
or criminals were to be taken up and kept until either they 
could prove their freedom and pay four hundred pounds of 
tobacco, or their masters claimed them and paid the same 
sum. It is interesting to note that a law of this kind, of 
1669, was to be communicated to the sister Colonies to the 
North, that fugitives might be held there for their masters.^ 
For a hundred years, law after law was made, but despite 
stringent regulations — of passes required, and penalties threat- 
ened — some of the servants would not stay in service. Fin- 
ally, white indentured servants ceased to form a class in the 
population, and when men spoke of a runaway they meant a 
negro.^ 

Some of the negro slaves soon followed the example of the 
white servants. In a quarrel between the Dutch of New 
Amsterdam and the government of Maryland, in 1659, the 
Dutch declared that unless their runaway servants were sent 
back to tliem, they would keep all the servants and negroes 



' Md. Arch., II, 224, 523. 

^ We read in an act of 1786 (43) that many apprentices had been running 
away. The Baltimore Sun, for Jan. 6, 1858, gives the case of a wliite a})pren- 
tice, who had absconded and was sent back by the magistrate. In the latter 
years of slave-liolding, as to-day, a white apprentice had sometimes to be 
given back to his master. 



Slaves. 73 

that had fled to them from Maiyland.^ The courts allowed 
masters of runaway servants to recompense themselves 
for their losses by holding the servants for a longer term. 
Slaves for life were evidently incapable of paying any such 
penalty. An act of 1663 required English servants who 
should run away in company with negro or other slaves, to 
repay the master or owners of the slaves, by direction of the 
courts.^ The act of 1669 makes no mention of slaves. That 
of 1676 was intended chiefly for servants, though slaves are 
included, and declared that former acts had proved ineffec- 
tual, in not giving sufficient encouragement for the seizure of 
runaways. So, servants were forbidden to depart ten miles 
from home without a note of leave, under penalty of being 
arrested as runaways, and having to serve, at the end of their 
terms, ten extra days for each day of absence. Any person 
who should detain a servant, knowing that he or she was 
unlawfully absent from home, would be liable to a fine of five 
hundred pounds of tobacco for every night the servant was on 
his place. Those who carried away any servant or slave 
should pay the employer or owner treble damages and costs. 
As the act applied to servants, " whither by Indenture or 
according to the Custome of the Countrey or hired for wages," 
it is evident that any passer by was liable to be examined, 
and perhaps delayed, by any zealous citizen. So, the better 
to insure against detention or arrest, persons traveling beyond 
their own county were directed to get a pass, under the county 
seal, for which they had to pay one shilling or ten pounds of 
tobacco. Any person who should take up a runaway or one 
without a pass who could not give a good account of himself, 
was entitled to two hundred pounds of tobacco or other satis- 
faction. If he lived in the Northern Colonies or in Virginia 
or Delaware, except in certain parts adjacent to Maryland, he 
was entitled to twice that sum for a runaway returned to 



1 Md. Arch., Ill, 372. 
^Md. Arch., I, 489. 



74 The Negro in Maryland. 

Maryland.^ In order that runaways might more easily be 
returned, the plan was adopted of making Annapolis a clear- 
ing-house, as it were. Not only were runaways brought there, 
but notices were to be speedily sent there, from all parts, of 
servants or negroes in custody, whose masters were not known ; 
and a list of these was to be kept posted by the sheriff. The 
commissioners in each county were also to post notices, at the 
offices of the courts, of such runaways as might be taken 
thereabouts.^ 

In 1709, an Indian who had been kept for some time in 
one of the county jails, was discharged by special act of 
assembly, and the distinction was then drawn that persons, 
other than negroes and mulattoes, who should be found trav- 
eling without passes and committed as runaways, should not 
be detained over six months, if they could not before prove 
their freedom. On being released, such persons had to pay or 
work out the costs. After 1719, servants and slaves who had 
not been taken away by their owners, might be sold at auction, 
and the balance, after all costs were deducted, was secured to 
the owner, should he appear within reasonable time.^ 

In treaties made by the Governor of Maryland with various 
Indians, in 1661 and 1663, there is the stipulation that the 
Indians are to return any runaway "Englishmen." Later, the 
neighboring Indians were encouraged to seize runaways by the 
reward of a blanket or its value. Treaties with them forcbade 
their harboring servants and slaves, who were to be given over 
to the nearest English plantation. The backwoods offered a 
near retreat for runaways. As a certain tribe of Indians had 
evidently been regardless of the rights of the good people of 
Maryland in their servants and slaves, the Governor and 
Council decided, in 1722, to send to these a messenger with a 
treaty of peace and friendship, and the promise of a reward of 



' Md. Arch., II, 523. Ee-enacted in 1692 and 1699. See also LL. 3, 40. 

-Council Proceedings, 1695/6, H. D. 2, p. 297. 

•a.L. 3, 385. Re-enacted in 1715, 44, 35. 1719, 2; Repealed, 1802. 



Slaves. 75 

two blankets and a gun to every Indian who should return 
a slave. These allurements were evidently unavailing, for 
three years later it was decided to send again, to invite some of 
the chiefs to Annapolis. The messenger was to endeavor to 
persuade them to come, by all reasonable means, including a 
present of a calico shirt and pair of scarlet worsted stockings 
to each chief, and the distribution of four other shirts among 
such as the chiefs should name. Feeling sure of the success of 
this mission, the Council decided that whatever negroes should 
be brought down by the Indians should be held in custody 
until the Assembly should decide what to do with them. But 
neither chiefs nor slaves came, and another messenger still 
seems to have been sent without result. At that time a sum 
of money was appropriated from the treasury for the encour- 
agement of the seizure of runaways.^ 

Honest people of Maryland were somewhat troubled by the 
escape of debtors to foreign parts, and after 1715, masters of 
vessels could not lawfully carry away any persons whatsoever 
without the proper passes from the authorities. But servants 
and slaves were still evidently able to get away, for there was 
enacted in 1753 that captains of boats over eighteen feet long, 
keel, should not enter or take permit to sail, at any custom 
house, without taking an oath against concealing any such on 
shipboard, or taking them away. They might be properly 
hired for work on a vessel, but otherwise the captain became 
liable to a fine of twenty shillings and costs, for every hour he 
allowed a servant or slave on board. Ten years later this act 
was made perpetual, the preamble stating that it had appeared 
very beneficial.^ 

When word came to Annapolis, in 1697, that two negroes, a 
man and a woman, were outlying in the neighboring woods, 
the man being armed with a gun and threatening the life of 



1 Md. Arch., Ill, 433, 486. Council Kecords, 1700, X, 238 ; 1722, 51, 131, 
140, 1725/6, March 23. 
mi5, 19; 1753, 9. 



76 The Negro in Maryland. 

anyone who tried to take them, the Governor ordered an officer 
of the county to raise the neighborhood, to apprehend the 
negroes by force and to give them to the sheriff at Annapolis, 
to be imprisoned against the appearance of their master. If the 
posse was not successful in arresting them, the rangers would 
be put on their track. In 1723 there was enacted that any 
runaway negro, or other slave, who should outlie in the woods 
and resist those persons who were legally empowered to capture 
him, might be killed, without offence or penalty on the part of 
the pursuers. An act of 1751 secured from prosecution any 
person who might kill a slave, deemed to be guilty of any 
serious offence, and resisting arrest. The value of the slave so 
killed, was paid to the owner by the public. But this was so 
qualified, two years after, that the person should not be secured 
against trial, but should not be punished in any way, if the 
killing was found by the court to have been done justifiably.^ 
As sheriffs sometimes neglected to advertise runaways, a law 
of 1792 provided that advertisements, with minute particulars, 
should be continued until the prisoners were released in course 
of law. After 1 802, sheriffs were to advertise runaway servants 
or slaves in some public newspaper printed in Baltimore, in 
Washington and in Easton, besides any other notices they should 
see fit to post, within fifteen days after the capture. The run- 
away was to be fully described. If the owner did not apply 
for him within sixty days, and give security for all costs, the 
sheriff should advertise him for sale, wait at least twenty days, 
and then sell him to the highest bidder. All the proceeds after 

> Council Records, H. D. 2, 442. 1723, 15 ; 1751, 14; 1753, 26. In 1738 
several negroes who had broken jail, and others who had run away, were 
outlying in Prince George's county, and had done some violence. The 
Council were of the opinion that the magistrates had not exerted themselves 
sufficiently, so the sheriff was ordered to seize them, and to take, if neces- 
sary, the whole power of the county. (Council Records, May 5th.) We 
read that in 17G4 the Governor, having read the letters and depositions 
relating to the shooting of a slave of Charles Carroll, Esq., by Captain John 
Ireland, " was pleased to order a nolle prosequi and pardon " for the said 
Ireland. (Council Records, Liber T. R. 1G9.) 



Slaves. 77 

costs were deducted, were to be paid by the county court to the 
owner, but if he did not apply within two years, they went to 
the county. No servant or slave so sold could be carried out 
of Maryland within two years after the sale, under the same 
penalties as for the transportation of a free black. For every 
case of neglect to follow the law, a sheriif could be fined a 
hundred dollars.^ By the act of 1 796, a free black who allowed 
a slave to use his freedom paper, by means of which the slave 
escaped, could be fined not over three hundred dollars — half 
to the master of the slave — or be sold to service in default. 
But as misuse of these certificates continued, greater care was 
now prescribed for the issue of them, and a second one was 
not to be issued to any free black, except on satisfactory proof 
that the first had been lost. In 1810, the courts before which 
negroes might be brought as suspected runaways, were ordered 
to be well satisfied in every case before granting discharges. 
After 1817, any person who had been duly committed by a 
magistrate as a suspected runaway, and had then been duly 
advertised, as before, but had not been claimed within the 
sixty days, was taken before a judge of the county or orphans' 
court for full examination. If the judge deemed the prisoner 
a free man, he would thereupon discharge him. Otherwise he 
would remand him for a reasonable time, and have the reputed 
owner notified, but if no rightful owner appeared in that time, 
the prisoner would then be discharged. In either case, any 
costs were paid by the county. This radical change of freeing 
the negro who, while not claimed, could not yet prove his free- 
dom, and of leaving all costs to be paid by the public, was not 
effected without much strong opposition. The motion to strike 
it out of the bill was lost by two votes only in the House. At 
the next session a bill to repeal it passed the House finally, 
but was rejected by the Senate. It remained the law, save 
that after 1828, the charges for the care of blacks ultimately 
discharged, were paid from the State treasury.^ 

11792,72; 1802, 96. 

nSlO, 63; 1817, 112; House Journal, 1828,98. 



78 The Negro in Maryland. 

White servants who ran away and were captured had to 
recompense their masters by increased term of service. Negro 
servants for terras of years were dealt witli, doubtless, in 
the same way, but they were few in number before the nine- 
teenth century. By an act of 1804, a master could secure the 
use of a captured runaway for such extended time as the court 
should deem just; but the court must be satisfied that the 
servant had not run away from ill treatment. The servant 
could be used for the specified time by the master or his heirs, 
but was in no case to be assigned to anyone living out of INIary- 
land. In 1830, the House committee, in answer to a petition 
of sundry citizens of Talbot county for further security to 
slave owners, recommended a bill which allowed the sale for a 
much increased term, of those slaves, for terms of years, who 
had run away and been taken. But the bill was amended so 
that no order for the sale should be granted except in cases 
where the servants had once before run away ; and the matter 
was then indefinitely postponed. In 1833, it was enacted that 
the courts could extend the terra of runaway blacks so as fairly 
to indemnify the owners for all loss, or could give orders, on 
due petition of the owners, for the sale of the owners' rights in 
thera to anyone in or without Maryland, if, as in all cases, the 
offence had not been caused by the ill treatment of the master. 
In case of sale, the slave was to be given a certified copy of 
the papers on Avhich his freedom depended, and of the order 
of the court for the sale. He could then be taken from the 
State if the purchaser desired.^ 

Slave owners had always, by the custom of the country, the 
right to give their slaves reasonable punishment. One of the 
provisions of the act of 1751, on negroes, was that the owner 
of a slave who had attempted to run away might, if he chose, 
turn him over to the county court, to be punished by whip- 
ping, cropping, branding or otherwise, as the court should see 
fit — but not so as to kill him or unfit him for labor. By the 

1 1804, 90 ; 1833, 224. 



Slaves. 79 

same act, any person who should persuade a slave to run 
away, became liable, if the slave absconded, to pay his full 
value to the owner, or if unable to do this, to be imprisoned 
for a year. A white servant, for the same offence, had to pay 
the same sum, or serve the master for four years. By the act 
of 1796, on negroes, there was fixed a penalty of not over two 
hundred dollars — in addition to whatever damages might be 
gotten at law — for any person who should be convicted of 
giving a pass unlawfully to any slave or servant, or assisting 
in any way in their escape. Half of this fine went to the 
owner of the slave, half to the county. By the act of 1 809, 
on crimes, the stealing of a slave or the act of giving aid or 
counsel thereto, was punished by indemnification and impris- 
onment for not over twelve years. In 1818, the penalty for 
inciting or aiding a runaway to escape, or for harboring a 
runaway, was fixed at not over six years' imprisonment. 
This was for a free person, only. In 1827 — perhaps the 
result of a petition from sundry citizens of Montgomery 
county for greater security for slave property — there was 
added that slaves found guilty, before any justice, of aiding 
runaways, should receive thirty-nine lashes.' The House of 
Delegates received, in 1820, a petition from certain inhabi- 
tants of Cecil county for a law making a slave who should 
run away guilty of a felony. This was referred, but evi- 
dently without result. In 1838 there was enacted, that any- 
slave who should escape from Maryland with the intention of 
freeing himself from servitude, against the will of his owner, 
should be deemed guilty of felony, and, on due conviction by 
the court, should be sold by the sheriff, at a properly adver- 
tised auction, to be transported from the State. The proceeds, 
after expenses were deducted, went to the owner of the slave. 
And the purchaser was required to give bonds to the State of 
Maryland, in a sum equal to the amount paid, that the slave 
should be removed from the State ; and in default of a proper 

nSlS, 157; 1827, 15. 



80 The Negro in Maryland. 

bond, the slave would be sold again. And the Governor of 
Maryland was directed, when evidence of the escape of a slave 
was laid before him, to demand the runaway, as a fugitive 
from justice, from the authorities of the State to which he 
had fled. Ten years later, the amount of the bond required 
was doubled, to twice the value of the slave.^ 

The old reward to those taking up a runaway, of two hun- 
dred pounds of tobacco or twenty shillings, was changed in 
1806 to six dollars. In 1833 — as it had been shown, says 
the preamble, that this was not enough to give the neces- 
sary encouragement — the reward was raised to thirty dollars. 
Constables, too, received special fees for taking up runaways ; 
for instance, those of Anne Arundel county got six dollars for 
each capture. After 1844, the sum allowed for capturing any 
runaway slave between the ages of fifteen and forty-five years 
was fifteen dollars, where the capture took place within thirty 
miles but more than twenty miles from the slave's home, and 
fifty dollars, if over thirty miles away. For a slave under or 
over those ages, the reward was half those sums. But, to 
entitle one to such reward, the capture must take place beyond 
the county in which the slave was owned or hired. For a 
slave taken within a free State, except in the border counties 
of Pennsylvania, there could be claimed a reward of one hun- 
dred dollars, or half the value of tlie slave, at the option of 
the owner. Where larger rewards were offered by the owners, 
these sums were deemed to be included therein.^ 

In 1818, the longest term of imprisonment for aiding or 
inciting a slave to escape had been fixed at six years. In 
1844, this maximum penalty was reduced to five years. Five 



' 1838, 63 ; 1847, 309. 

n833, 111 ; 1837, 271 ; 1844, 273. 

In 1829, a petition from sundry citizens of Frederick co. for repeal of the 
acts on runaways, and that no fees be allowed anyone who might take up a 
negro who should be found to be free, was laid on the table. 

By Act of 1844, a slave once in a free State, one hundred miles from home, 
was deemed a runaway, so as to entitle the captor to the large reward offered. 



Slaves. 81 

years after, however, the minimum term in the penitentiary 
was fixed at six years, the maximum at fifteen ; and so the 
law remained. A slave convicted of the same offence, received 
either imprisonment for the same time or not over forty lashes, 
in the discretion of the court. Later, the penalty of impris- 
onment was changed to sale out of the State.^ 

Masters frequently sold to the South their slaves who 
attempted to run away. There remained on the statute books 
the old law which exempted from punishment anyone who- 
should chance to kill a runaway slave forcibly resisting cap- 
ture, and which made the State liable to the owner for the 
value of the slave. In 1807, the House of Delegates received 
a petition from a citizen of Somerset county, for compensation 
for his slave who was drowned while pursued as a runaway. 
The committee reported that the act of 1751 made provision 
for payment for slaves killed in pursuit; that the slave in 
question ran into Pocomoke river to avoid being caught, and 
in consequence was drowned ; that no distinction should be 
made as to the manner of the death, if it was from pursuit, 
for the result to the owner of a slave was the same. This 
report, with an appropriation of a hundred pounds, the House 
accepted by a vote of thirty-three to twenty -nine; but the 
Senate rejected the bill. In 1856, the State paid a certain 
citizen one thousand dollars, under the act of 1751, for a 
slave killed while resisting arrest.^ 

1 1844, 80 ; 1849, 296. 

2 House Journal, 1807, 44-59. 1856, ch. 54. 

In May, 1852, a runaway slave was killed in Pennsylvania by a resident 
of Baltimore. The Legislature of Maryland voted several thousand dollars 
for legal and other assistance to him, declaring that it was believed that the 
circumstances of the case did not make the killing murder or homicide, to 
be punished by law. (1852, 330, Res. 12, &c.) 

It seems also that masters were accustomed to have committed to the 
jails by magistrates such slaves as were unruly or desirous of running away, 
or whom, for one reason or another, they desired to have in safe keeping. 
To prevent abuse of this custom, sheriffs were forbidden after 1818 to receive 
slaves from such owners as were engaged in the slave traffic ; but others 

6 



82 The Negro in Maryland. 

There was also in force the old law fining a ship-captain — 
three dollars now, instead of twenty shillings, an hour — for 
carrying away negroes without passes, and for allowing slaves 
on board his ship, unless properly hired. In 1824, there 
was enacted further that no officer of a ship should receive on 
board or carry away any colored person without a properly 
authenticated certificate of freedom from a clerk of court of 
the State, as well as a certificate from the clerk of the county 
where the vessel sailed, with a description of the black. The 
clerks as well as the captains were to keep careful lists of all 
colored persons allowed to sail, and captains had to show these 

could have their slaves committed to jail and kept there at their expense. 
Three years after, a bill passed the House to allow sheriffs to receive only 
such slaves as were committed in due course of law, but this was rejected 
by the Senate. Some ten years later, a slave escaped from a county jail, to 
which he had been sent by a magistrate at the master's request. The mas- 
ter sued in the county court to recover damages from the sheriff. He failed 
there, but the Court of Appeals decided in his favor. " It has been," said 
the Chief Justice, "the constant practice (with what moral propriety it is 
not for us to say ) for owners of slaves in this iState to have them committed 
to the jails of the respective counties, for real or supposed offences against 
their owners." (1818, 208. 5 G. & J., 253.) 

Within the jails whites and blacks were separated, but they were expected 
evidently to he given the same food and care, save that any medical care 
would depend on the master ; not being paid for by the public, as in the 
case of free prisoners. 

In 1824, as it was represented that Baltimore was subjected to great ex- 
pense for the care of negroes committed to jail as runaways — the free black 
population of the city was fast growing — the sheriff of Baltimore county 
was ordered to have all supposed runaways brouglit before one of the judges 
of the court, within two days, to be examined and either discharged at once 
or recommitted. The black, if recommitted, was to be advertised in two 
Baltimore papers, within two days, and twice a week for two months. If 
not tlien claimed, he was to be discharged. Tliis act was repealed four years 
later ; the act of 1817, as amended by 1828, 98, being in force for Baltimore 
as elsewhere. (1824, 171.) The cliarges to tlie State for board in Baltimore 
jail of supposed runaways, ultimately discharged, were in 1830, $237.96 ; in 
1831, ?;354.13; in 1832, $364.05; in 1833, $270.24; &q. The number of 
runaways conmiitted were, in 1852, 61 blacks ; in 1853, 1 wliite and 40 blacks ; 
in 1854, 62 blacks; in 1857, 3 whites and 86 blacks: in 1858, 1 white and 
82 blacks; in 1859, 2 whites and 99 blacks; &c. 



Slaves. 83 

lists to any persou who should desire to see them, and had to 
give every facility for search on their vessels, under a penalty 
of one hundred dollars. For actually carrying away a col- 
ored person contrary to this act, a captain became liable to a 
fine of one thousand dollars — half to the State, half to the 
person who should enter suit. In March, 1 828, a slave woman 
left Baltimore on a steamer of the Penn., Del. ■& Md. Co. 
The owner warned the captain of the boat that the slave was 
probably on board, but no eiforts were made to find her. The 
company was then sued for the loss of the slave and judgment 
given against it in both the lower court and the Court of 
Appeals. The captain testified that the owner could have 
searched any part of the boat, and that officers were always 
stationed on the boats before sailing, to prevent runaways 
from getting aboard ; but the Court held that the captain, if 
he had been sufficiently informed of the supposed presence of 
the negro, and had failed to make the necessary search, had 
acted at his peril, and that his employers were responsible.^ 
In 1838, a new law was made, to lessen the facilities of escape 
for slaves. From that time, no railroad, chartered by the 
State of Maryland, or vessel navigating the waters of the State, 
could transport any slave without a permission in writing from 
the owner, under a penalty of five hundred dollars for every 
slave, to be recovered from the railroad corporation or the 
owner or captain of the vessel. One half of this penalty went 
to the informer, one half to the State. In addition, if any 
slave escaped by being carried on a railway or vessel, the 
owner might recover the amount of his loss from the corpora- 
tion or ship-owners, by an action of debt. But the law did 
not extend to prevent slaves from travelling in company with 
their masters or their master's agents.^ In accordance with 
this act, officers of boats and railroads were expected by their 
employers to require proof of freedom or a permit to travel 



11824, 85; 6 G, & J., 197, Dec, 1834. 
nSSS, 375. 



84 The Negro in Maryland, 

from any colored person not known to them to be free. In 
1849, a bill to provide, especially, for the inspection of all 
vessels passing through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 
for the purpose of stopping fugitives, was ordered in the House 
of Delegates; but evidently nothing further was done.^ In 
1855, the owner of a slave who was carried on the Philadel- 
phia, Wilmington and Baltimore R. R., and thus helped to 
escape, recovered over one thousand dollars from the railroad.^ 
In August of the same year, a negro bey owned in Somerset 
county, came to Baltimore on a steamer tilled with passengers 
from a camp-meeting. The officers of the boat had no knowl- 
edge that he was on board. The owners of the boat were 
sued, and judgment given in their favor, in the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas in Baltimore. But this was reversed by the Court 
of Appeals, which held that the owners could not escape the 
penalty by showing that neither they nor their agents knew 
that the slave was on the boat, although reasonable diligence 
had been used to prevent runaways from embarking. The 
law had been made, said the Court, to remedy the great loss 
suffered by slave-holders ; and where one of two innocent 
parties must suffer, the loss should fall on him who could 
most easily have prevented it.^ Another slave ow'ner, at about 
the same time, got over eight hundred dollars in a suit against 
the Northern Central R. R. for allowing his runaway slave 
to use the road.* In another case, the runaway slave had been 
hired out by his master to work on a sailing vessel which ran 
between Baltimore and Annapolis. His master won five hun- 
dred dollars from the owners of the packet, in a suit in the 
Circuit Court for Anne Arundel county ; but this judgment 
was reversed, the Court of Appeals holding that transporta- 



• House Journal, 1849, p. 132. 

*In Circ. Court for Harford Co., Baltimore Sun, Feb. 3rd, 1855. 
'13 Md. Reports, 181. 1859. 

* Baltimore City Superior Court. Baltimore Sun, Feb. 10, 1858. 



Slaves. 85 

tion, by the act of 1838, meant the taking away from the 
owner without his consent/ 

From Georgia or Carolina a runaway slave must make a 
long journey before reaching free soil — from Maryland the 
escape would be a short one at the most. For Pennsylvania 
had abolished slavery in Revolutionary days, and so many of 
the inhabitants had become opposed to slavery anywhere, that 
runaways were frequently protected and aided to escape further. 
As early as 1796, the Maryland House of Delegates received a 
petition from a citizen of Worcester county, stating that the 
abolitionists, together with civil officers in Pennsylvania, had 
taken away his negroes and arrested his person, and praying 
for aid. The committee reported that the petitioner had been 
grossly injured in his person and property by some of the citi- 
zens in that State, but that it would be improper for the Legis- 
lature to interfere and become a party on his behalf, as the 
federal courts were open to all citizens of the country, and 
competent to redress all such injuries. With this the House 
concurred by a vote of sixty to four. A further suggestion 
that the State should loan money to the petitioner, on sufficient 
surety, that he might enter and prosecute the necessary suits 
for redress, was lost by one v^ote. In 1798 a bill for better 
security of property in slaves was introduced in the Maryland 
House of Delegates, only to be postponed ; but a resolution 
was adopted, declaring that slave owners were subjected to 
great loss and inconvenience from the escape of slaves to Dela- 
ware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they remained 
concealed and protected by the whites, and authorizing the 
Governor and Council to take measures with the Governors of 
those States to stop such abuses.^ In 1815, sundry inhabitants 
of Allegany, St. Mary's and Washington counties asked for 



^ 21 Md. Reports, 1. 1863. Nor was it necessary, said the Court in this 
case, that a slave should actually escape, to constitute the offence, under the 
law. 

- House Journal, 1796, 37-40 ; 1798, 47, 106 ; Res. 7. 



86 The Negro in Maryland. 

action to prevent the escape of slaves into Pennsylvania. The 
House thereupon resolved that the Legislature of Pennsyl- 
vania be requested to use its authority, as it should deem 
best, to prevent the citizens from harboring and employing 
runaway slaves, and to facilitate the return of such to their real 
owners. This resolution was, however, rejected in the Senate.^ 
But at the next session was passed a resolution that such abuses 
had so increased from citizens of Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
and the inconvenience to the good people of Maryland had 
become so great, that further silence was improper. And the 
Governor was ordered to send a copy of this resolution to the 
Governors of those States, to be laid before their Legislatures, 
that some provisions might be made to prevent the evils. 
Again, the next year, the Governor was ordered to open a cor- 
respondence at once for the same object, and it was declared 
that the abuses were injurious in their consequences even to 
slaves themselves.^ lu 1820 the Assembly resolved that it 
was necessary to call the attention of Congress to the constant 
and ready protection given to runaways by citizens of Penn- 
sylvania. Every possible difficulty, we read, was there put in 
the way of the recovery of a slave, even in the legal and just 
efforts of the owner. If legal proceedings favored him, force 
was not seldom used. Such a state of things was not only 
vexatious to masters, but tended to destroy the contentment and 
happiness of the slaves. So the Governor was requested to 
ask the members of Congress from Maryland to exert their 
influence to procure measures by Congress to protect the rights 
of slaveholders.^ At the very next session of Assembly, the 
committee on Grievances and Courts reported to the House 
that they had found true the petition of one of their fellow 
members, a delegate from Baltimore county, as to the treat- 
ment which he received in person from sundry citizens of York 



' House Journal, 1815, 34, 43, 57, 76. 
^1816,68; 1817,43. 
'1820, Res. 281. 



Slaves. 87 

county, Pennsylvania, while he was in the peaceable and legal 
exercise of the provisions of the act of Congress for the capture 
of fugitive slaves ; and the committee urged that measures 
should be taken by Pennsylvania to stop the practices, not 
merely of aiding runaways, but of keeping away the owners by 
threats of personal violence, and of using the civil authorities 
to force owners to abandon their property rather than undergo 
imprisonment and trial under a State law against kidnapping. 
The House thereupon passed a resolution, asking the Governor 
of Pennsylvania to interpose in behalf of the petitioner, but 
the matter was dropped in the Senate, as the petitioner had by 
that time been relieved. Another resolution, however, was 
sent the Governors of Pennsylvania and Delaware, to remedy 
the abuses in general. Silence on the part of the Assembly of 
Maryland was declared to be highly improper, if not criminal.^ 
By the next session, again, another member of the House had 
received opposition and indignity ; whereupon a joint com- 
mittee from House and Senate, at the head of which stood 
Mr. Reverdy Johnson, entered into communication with the 
authorities of Pennsylvania. Into the correspondence which 
followed, and the work done by this committee and those 
who afterward treated with New Jersey and Delaware, we 
are not called on to enter.^ Suffice it to point out the injuries 
which the people of Maryland felt they were receiving at the 
hands of their neighbors. These injuries, wrote the joint com- 
mittee of 1822, had for several years been loudly complained 
of by the people of Maryland, while due regard was had to the 
delicate nature of the subject, and of the caution Math which it 
should be treated. Slavery was a calamity, certainly not more 
deplored by Pennsylvania than by Maryland. All friends of 
freedom should rejoice at its complete extermination ; but that 
end could not be expected for many years to come. So long 



1 House Journal, 1821, 21, 119 ; Kes. 53. 

2 House Journal, 1822, 46, 163, &c.; 1823, 67; 1824, 24, 103, &c.; 1825, 
Res. 81. 



88 The Negro in Maryland. 

as slavery lasts, citizens of Maryland are as much entitled to 
their slaves as to any other property ; their rights to them are 
as much secured by the Constitution of the United States as 
any rights they possess. The existence of our happy Union 
depends, in a great degree, on preserving harmony among its 
members. So spoke this committee. All must have agreed 
that the rights of slaveholders should be protected. In 1837 
and 1843, resolutions of the Assembly declared that no State 
could abridge the rights guaranteed to all citizens by the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and called for a law from 
Congress to make the rescue of a fugitive a criminal offence, 
to be punished by imprisonment, when remuneration could not 
be given. ^ A citizen of Maryland met with such experiences 
in New York, while attempting lawfully to recover a runaway, 
that the Assembly in 1849 directed the Attorney-General to 
take all steps for an appeal in the case, if necessary, to the 
Supreme Court. The negro, so the resolution stated, was dis- 
charged by a justice of the Supreme Court of New York, on 
grounds which amounted to the abnegation of the laws of Con- 
gress to secui'e slave owners their property in runaway slaves. 
In tlie same year, several men were brought to trial by the 
State for helping slaves to escape, and the Assembly, as we 
sa^v, tripled the maximum term for that offence. A few years 
later, the State appropriated over eleven hundred dollars to 
several persons in Montgomery county for arresting a man 
from New York ^\•ho had furthered the escape of slaves.^ 
Finally, the Governor, in 1847 and 1852, told the people of 
Maryland how ineffectual were requisitions on the State of 
Pennsylvania for the delivery of slaves, as well as for the de- 
livery of a citizen of Maryland who had aided slaves to escape; 
and how one respected citizen of INIaryland had died from vio- 
lence received in Pennsylvania, and another was shot down 
there and his son seriously wounded, while engaged in the re- 

» 1837, Res. 79 ; 1843, lies. 28. 

M849, Res. 21, 32; 1853, 124. House Journal, 1853, Doc. G. 



Slaves. 89 

turn of their runaway slaves, according to the act of Congress. 
There is much significance in the experience of two slaves who 
ran away from their home in Virginia, in the winter of 1856, 
and cautiously followed the railroads North. After passing the 
Gunpowder River, beyond Baltimore, they thought they had 
crossed the line into Pennsylvania, and applied for work ; but 
they were still in Maryland, and were sent back to Virginia. 

In other ways, too, in the newspapers, men were frequently 
reminded of the insecurity of slave property. In the county 
papers were the sheriffs' advertisements and the description of 
runaways, with the rough wood-cut of a black hurrying on, 
with stick and bundle-handkerchief over his shoulder, and his 
eyes turned backwards. The Easton Star, for instance, told 
how twelve slaves had just run away from that neighborhood 
on a certain Saturday night, and that two nights before, and two 
nights after, several had escaped from the lower counties. The 
Cecil Democrat said that six slaves had gone from that county 
while their master was away, and that they were doubtless 
assisted by abolitionists, as one had been seen there-abouts, about 
that time. Again, the Easton Gazette chronicled the loss of 
five more slaves on a Saturday night. One citizen of Balti- 
more county lost seventeen slaves together, but found them in 
Pennsylvania and brought them back. Later still, in 1853, 
there was a stampede of slaves, as the Cumberland Telegraph 
put it, but eight at least were recaptured across the line. On 
a certain day in September, 1855, said the Chestertown News, 
ten slaves not only took themselves away, but three horses and 
two carriages besides ; and on October 20th, following, seven 
more escaped, and on the 26th, eleven more. There were 
reports, too, of escapes and captures in which weapons were 
used on both sides. 

It is certain that many a slave and free black, especially in 
the communities where they were known, moved about freely 
without thought of the need of a pass, or of fear of hindrance. 
If the laws, as we have seen, were not always regarded, some- 
times they were ineffectual. A certain British vessel cleared 



90 The Negro in Maryland. 

from Baltimore, iu 1852, after the master, as required, had 
taken the usual oath against shipping runaways. The owners 
of a slave boy, then missing, had their suspicions, and over- 
took the vessel down the Chesapeake and had her searched. 
The boy was found, hidden on board by a colored man, unbe- 
known to the officers. Two slaves, some years later, got 
tickets at the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Station 
in Baltimore, on showing a certificate of freedom, but their 
owner and the police caught them before the train started. But 
a slave who traveled without a pass was liable to get into 
trouble. One day in Baltimore, in 1858, several colored men 
were ari'ested as runaway slaves, and taken before the Superior 
Court; where it was found that they were slaves who had 
come to tJie city to spend their Christmas holidays, by permis- 
sion of their master, and that they had left their passes with 
the captain of the steamer in which they came and were to 
return home. They were at once released by the court.^ The 
slaveholders' convention of Worcester county in 1858, resolved, 
among other things, that slaveholders should be requested to 
discontinue the practice of letting slaves leave home without 
passes. 

Scattered here and there in the court reports are convictions 
of both whites and blacks for aiding runaways to escape. In 
a few cases, too, both whites and free blacks were found to have 
encouraged slaves to run away, and then to have betrayed them 
for the reward.^ One free black, at least, seems to have earned 
a livelihood by aiding slaves to escape, for when tried in Balti- 
more, in 1857, for helping away five slaves, it appeared that 
he had been for some years in that occupation, was in the 
employ of three whites, and generally got fifteen dollars for 
every slave he got away. He had been in the penitentiary 
before, and was then sold out of the State for thirty years."* 



' Baltimore Sun, Jan. let, 1858. 

-' For instance, Baltimore Sun, of Jan. 19tli, 1849. 

•' Baltimore City Circuit Court, Jan. 6th, 1857. He brought $350. 



Slaves. 91 

In 1846, thirty and more citizens of Kent county were 
incorporated into a "Mutual Protection Society," for the 
insurance of slave property. Every person who insured a 
slave became a member, and the object was to protect the mem- 
bers from loss of slaves who might run away beyond the 
limits of Maryland. Slaves who were captured were to be 
sold by the Society beyond the State, and the proceeds went to 
reimburse members and into the funds of the Society. In 
1860, was formed the Southern Slaveholders' Insurance Com- 
pany of Maryland. Any slaveholder of the United States 
could have his property insured, and either the runaways 
were returned or their value paid.^ 

Yet, while slave property in Maryland was thus far from 
being secure, and many slaves did run away, the great majority 
of slaves there probably had no thought of leaving home. 

In 1854, two slaves who had run away from Worcester 
county, desired to return home, but feared that they might be 
convicted as runaways, and sold out of the State. A s})ecial 
act of Assembly, therefore, allowed them to return to their 
master without fear of such punishment. Some years after, a 
slave belonging in the same county ran away into Delaware, 
but soon turned back to go home. On his way he was arrested, 
lodged in jail in Delaware, and then sent home. By a special 
act, his mistress was allowed to keep him, inasmuch, we read, 
as his presence in the slave population was thought by many 
slaveholders of the county to be calculated to keep his fellows 
from absconding.^ 



In 1689 rumors went abroad that the Romanists of Mary- 
land were plotting against the government of the Province, 



iSee Acts of Incorporation, 1846, 356 ; 1860, 390. A bill for a "Protec- 
tion Society" of Kent County had been rejected by the Senate in 1827. 
n854, 291; 1861-2,134. See also, 1861-2, 245. 



92 The Negro in Maryland. 

and that many and great disturbances were threatened, particu- 
larly in Calvert and Charles counties. The Indians, it was 
said, were in league with the papists. Suspicions must have 
been cast on the negroes, also, for those Southern counties had 
a large slave population. But a declaration signed by some 
fifteen prominent men there, assured the home government 
that the plot was wholly groundless and imaginary. In 1695, 
there was passed an act to prevent the frequent meetings of 
negroes. This soon expired ; but it is evident that blacks 
were regarded by the authorities as a part of the popula- 
tion that could easily be used in political intrigues.^ Nor 
were men entirely free of apprehensions from the white ser- 
vants, some of whom were the refuse of European camps, 
prisoners of war, and worthless convicts. There were reports 
of a plot of Irish servants and slaves in Bermuda, and of an 
insurrection which had been planned and almost carried out 
in Gloucester county, Virginia, by a number of servants, one 
of whom betrayed the plans, and four of whom were tried and 
executed.^ The Assembly of Maryland in 1705 declared that 
certain whites were guilty of a conspiracy to seize the Governor 
and magazine, and, joining with the " Heathen Indians," to 
cut oif the inhabitants of the Province.^ During all the years 
of Jacobite disaffection to the Protestant succession in Eng- 
land, the Romanists of ]\Iaryland were kept under the eye of 
government. In 1708, for instance, the sheriffs of the coun- 
ties were ordered to send to the Governor within a few weeks 
the number and names of papists — not merely of masters of 



'Pub. Kecord Office, quoted in Scharf's Maryland, I, 309. In 1698, the 
provincial Governors were ordered — at the suggestion of the Board of Trade 
— to see that the laws for increasing the whites in proportion to the blacks, 
were duly enforced. There were no such laws in Md., but Gov. Nicholson 
urged on the Board the evils that might follow from too great increase in 
tlie blacks. (Steven's Hist. Index, Vol. 1\'.) 

* Virginia Carolorum, 295. 

'Bacon, 1705, 5. Annals of Annapolis, 108. The ringleader, who was 
not caught, was attainted, two years later. 



Slaves. 93 

families, but of the households, servants and slaves baptized 
in the Roman faith.^ In 1739, the Council received the depo- 
sitions of several negroes of Prince George's county, telling 
of a most wicked and dangerous conspiracy which had been 
entered into by the blacks there, to destroy the whites, and to 
possess themselves of the country. Whereupon, the Governor 
issued orders for a special commission of Oyer and Terminer 
for the speedy trial of those who had been taken, and that a 
guard of twelve men, under the command of the colonel of 
the county, should be kept at the jail until the execution of 
any who might be convicted. And, further, the sheriff of 
Annapolis was ordered not to allow any negroes to enter that 
city on Sundays without written permits from their masters. 
On the next day, the Council decided that, in accordance 
with the laws on slaves, the trials could not be held before 
the next regular courts should sit, so the sheriff was ordered 
to take every precaution with his prisoners, and to levy any 
posse that might be necessary ; for there was reason, wrote 
the Council, to fear that those who were already in jail and 
the numbers which must be committed, together with their 
accomplices without, might give trouble. The Governor, 
further, issued a proclamation to all officials, civil and mili- 
tary, to aid in averting such great dangers as were threatening 
the lives and property of the people, by the rage and fury of 
merciless and barbarous slaves. Care was to be taken to 
enforce strictly the laws against tumultuous meetings of slaves, 
to secure all slaves who might be found wandering at large 
and who could not give satisfactory accounts of themselves, to 
execute all laws for the public safety, and to exhort all the 
people to be on their guard, for the defence of themselves and 
their neighbors. In particular, the magistrates were bidden 
to take notice of the way in which local officers should act, 
and the major-generals of the Eastern and Western shores 
were given careful instructions for the practice of the troops, 

1 Council Journal, 1704-1708, 125. 



94 The Negro in Maryland. 

to be ready for any possible insurrections or foreign wars. 
These messages were startling ; but this insurrection seems 
to have been no more than a local excitement caused by a few 
blacks. The leader was tried and executed. There was a 
great difference of opinion, indeed, as to the extent of the out- 
break and of the dangers from it, the House of Delegates 
assuring the Council — during some opposition to the appro- 
priations which the Council desired, the following year, on 
account of the war between England and Spain — that the 
Romanists of the Province were not inclined to disturb the 
peace, and that inquiry into the insurrection of the negroes in 
Prince George's county failed to find anything which could in 
any way be presumed to have endangered the welfare of the 
Province.^ In 1742, the Council feared that there was a con- 
spiracy of certain Indians to destroy all the whites in Mary- 
land ; but articles of peace were soon made with them, the 
action of the Governor was lenient, and within a year their 
guns were restored to them.^ In 1745, again, the Romanists 
were under great suspicion. To one of their leaders Governor 
Bladen wrote, that their religious duties should be fulfilled, 
as they surely might be, without such large meetings of people 
as might give suspicion of designs other than religious exer- 
cises. Nothing, said the Governor, could give greater alarm 
to good subjects of King George than such frequent meetings 
of whites and negroes under pretence of divine worship.^ 
Again, with the breaking out of the French and Indian war, 
not only Avere the people of Maryland, particularly tliose in 
its distant parts, bidden '>by a proclamation to be ready for 
defence, but the colonels of militia in Frederick and Baltimore 
counties were ordered to hold reviews, and to make returns of 

» Council Records, 1738-1753, 59, &c., 110. The Council seem to have 
taken the House to be very unpatriotic for being willing to believe no ill- 
will on the part of the negroes, and so for discouraging tlie need of military 
measures. 

"Council liecords, 1738-1753, 1(32, 

^Council Records, 1738-1753, 255. 



Slaves. 95 

the number of men and arms, and whether there was plenty 
of ammunition in the counties in case of any rioting or plot- 
ting by servants, slaves or others. Should such intrigues be 
known, the ring-leaders were to be seized by the troops.^ 
After Braddock's defeat, according to Governor Sharp's let- 
ters, the people were thrown into the greatest consterna- 
tion, slaves and convicts were well watched, and the militia 
were ready to quell any insurrections. Soon, indeed, reports 
came to the Council that the negroes in certain parts had 
held some tumultuous meetings and intrigues, and the Rom- 
anists in several counties had so misbehaved as to give cause 
for fears of insurrection. So the magistrates throughout the 
Province were ordered to make examination, and to imprison 
the offenders ; but if the reports were false, to carry the authors 
before the courts as disturbers of the peace. Inquiries were 
also to be made into the report that some Roman Catholic 
priests had recently been absent from their homes. Answers 
were received from the magistrates in nine counties, and all to 
the effect that the constables in the various hundreds were wide 
awake to their duties, that the Romanists were few in num- 
ber, and that nothing unusual had been done by the negroes.^ 
In the troubled state of affairs during the outbreak of the Rev- 
olution, several gentlemen requested Governor Eden to give 
out arms to the people, from fears that the servants and slaves 
might revolt. The Governor expostulated, stating that such 
action would tend only to hasten any such evil, but finally 
gave a quantity of arms to certain regularly appointed persons, 
in accordance with the militia act.^ But in both the Revolu- 
tion and the war of 1812 there was no general uprising of 
slaves. On the contrary, a number of colored men served 



^ Council Records, 1753-1767, 56. 

* Council Eecords, 1753-1767, 59, 65-73. Stevens' Hist. Index, Vol. X. 
Gov. Dinwiddle, of Va., had fears of the negroes at this time. (Dinwiddie 
Papers, II, 102.) 

'Letters of Gov. Eden, Scharf's Md., II, 179. 



96 The Negro in Maryland. 

faithfully in the American forces. In the summer of 1 793 
there arrived in Baltimore some twelve hundred refugees from 
San Domingo, flying from the horrors of servile insurrection. 
They brought half as many slaves with them. They were, 
reported a committee in the Assembly, in a state of distress 
which exceeded description. The Assembly appropriated five 
hundred dollars weekly for two months, and thousands of dol- 
lars were raised for them besides, throughout the State. The 
horrors of this insurrection had not been forgotten when, in the 
autumn of 1831, there came the reports of the revolt of slaves 
in Southampton county, Virginia. It is certain that fears and 
suspicions of the negroes were rumored in Maryland. In some 
of the lower counties, expresses were sent off for arms and men, 
and some blacks were arrested ; but there seem to have been 
no good reasons for any such apprehensions, and no need for 
such measures.^ 

Insurrection wholly local and the work of a few negroes 
only, was not unknown in Maryland. In 1845, several slaves 
and a free black were arrested for that offence in Charles 
county. The free black was given forty years imprisonment, 
and one slave was sentenced to be hung, but most of those who 
took part in the intrigue were not brought to trial, but were 
sold out of Maryland by their masters. A memorial, signed 
by a number of very respectable persons, was presented the 
Governor, to commute the sentence of the slave from hanging 
to imprisonment. The Governor signified his willingness so 
to do, did the law allow the confinement of slaves in thepeni- 



'1831, Res. 27, 05. Niks' Register, XLI, 131. In lower Delaware and 
Maryland, says tlie current number of iVi7es' Register, awful reports were 
heaped u})on one anotlier by fear, but there does not seem to have been the 
least foundation for this excitement. 

Mr. McSherry, in his History of Maryland, p. 358, says that the intrigues 
of the party of Nat. Turner extended over a part of Maryland, but that a 
misunderstanding on the part of those concerned, and timely measures on the 
part of tlie whites, prevented tlie outbreak. Unfortunately, no sources for 
this are mentioned. 



Slaves. 97 

tentiary ; whereupon a special act of Assembly directed that 
the slave might be imprisoned.^ 

Rumors of serious insurrections in Maryland seem to have 
been as groundless in the latter days of slavery as they had 
been generations before, when the politics of Europe, reflected 
in the Colonies, made the royal Governors look on the negroes 
as ready accomplices of the Romanists, or of the Jacobites, or 
of the French. In the spring of 1855, a rumor of an uprising 
of the slaves caused great excitement, in Dorchester county, 
and the houses of many negroes were searched for firearms, 
but the papers soon announced that the whole afl^air was a 
hoax.^ Meanwhile the excitement spread to Talbot county. 
It was feared that the blacks planned some movement during 
the Easter holidays approaching. A meeting of many and 
respectable citizens of Easton adopted resolutions asking slave- 
holders to keep their servants at home — although, says the 
Easton Gazette, there is probably no truth in the rumors.^ 
Two years later, a similar report broke out in Prince George's 
county. The blacks were more carefully watched, but all 
excitement soon subsided, and people concluded that there had 
never been any plan or intention of insurrection. In the 
autumn of 1859 occurred the John Brown raid on the border 
of Western Maryland and Virginia. Maryland militia were 
sent for the suppression of the outbreak, and the sheriiFs of the 
Western border counties called out large patroling parties, to 
prevent the meeting and escape of slaves. For some days 
the papers were full of nothing else. It was even said that 
there was to have been, on a certain day, an uprising of all the 
slaves of Maryland and Virginia. Then began the formation 
in all parts of Maryland of new military companies. Here, a 
public meeting was held and a rifle company formed ; in other 
places, cavalry companies were enlisted. The martial spirit is 



' Executive Message, 1845 ; 1845, ch. 368. 

"Cambridge Democrat, quoted in Baltimore Sun for April 13th, 1855. 
' Raston Gazette, April 7th, 1855. 
7 



98 The Negro in Maryland. 

up, said one county paper, and our people are their own best 
defenders.^ In Frederick, so the local papers stated, strangers 
had been seen to lurk about the barracks, if not indeed to 
attempt to enter them; so volunteer companies keep guard at 
night. There were rumors that accomplices of Brown were 
abroad, and the patrolers were ordered to arrest all suspicious 
characters. Again, that some forty slaves had planned to 
escape from Carroll county on a certain Saturday night, and 
that horses and wagons were found waiting when the plot was 
discovered. Afterwards, men learned that one of the first persons 
shot by John Brown's party was a colored porter at the Harper's 
Ferry depot, who remained faithful to his trust, and that the 
aid given Brown by the slaves was trivial. At that time even, 
there were many proofs that the threatened dangers were 
exaggerated. On the night of October 19th, the citizens of 
Frederick were startled by a report that an insurrection was 
about to break out, and their town was to be attacked. The 
streets were at once patrolled by bodies of armed men, and 
various precautions taken ; but the report in the newspaper is 
headed "Another False Alarm." ^ On a certain night, early 
in November following, an alarm of insurrection and murder 
was given while services were being held in a church in Som- 
erset county. The congregation, says the local paper, rose 
from prayers, broke up the benches to provide themselves with 
weapons, and scoured the neighborhood, but found nothing to 
alarm them. On the night following, the houses of many free 
blacks were searched, and a slave who attem])ted to leave one 
of the cabins w^as shot, being mistaken for an insurgent by the 
excited crowd. This has all, doubtless, adds the paper, grown 
out of the excitement roused by the affair at Harper's Ferry.^ 
The last week in November, the people of another neighbor- 



'See Baltimore and county papers for Oct., Nov., Dec, 1859. 1860, ch. 
57, 274; 1861-2, 163. 

- The Sun, Oct. 22nd, 1859. 
■ ' Somerset County Union Nov. 4th. 



Slaves. 99 

hood were told that a lady near the VirgiDia line, a large slave- 
holder had received a letter stating that the blacks of the 
Eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia had planned an insur- 
rection which was to be carried out at once. The local paper 
did not put the slightest faith in the report, but suggested that 
the citizens should be vigilant and ready for any emergency. 
A similar report — spoken of by the Baltimore Sun as a hoax 
— had been current on the Eastern shore of Virginia, the week 
before. At almost the same time, an excitement spread in 
Talbot county from a threatening letter which was found on a 
wharf at St. Michael's.^ Patrols were at once organized and 
a strong guard made ready to protect Easton. But nothing 
unusual happened, save these measures, and some unwonted 
severity, perhaps, shown by the constabulary to the blacks. 
Once again, Easton was put under arms, from the information 
of a colored woman ; and some person in the county remem- 
bered that a suspicious looking man, who might have been 
Brown himself, had been seen thereabouts before the Harper's 
Ferry affray. 

At these times of reported insurrection, the blacks were 
without doubt more frightened than the whites. Doubtless, 
too, many a community in Maryland could have said, at 
such times, what the paper in Wilmington, North Carolina, 
added to its account of the excitement that followed the news 
of the Nat. Turner insurrection : that the subject could not 
be dismissed without speaking of the good behavior of the 
slaves thereabouts, who might be entrusted, it was believed, to 
take part in the defence of the community under any circum- 
stances. In the Civil War that soon followed, the women and 
children of the South were left largely in the care of slaves, 
while the masters were fighting for a cause which would have 
lengthened, to say the least, the existence of slavery. 



1 Easton Star, Nov. 29th, 1859. 



100 The Negro in Maryland. 

Of the provisions of the act of 1695, to restrain the fre- 
quent assemblages of negroes, we know nothing ; l)ut the law 
soon expired. In 1723, the Assembly considered the evils 
resulting from the large meetings of negroes on " Sabbath and 
other Holy-days," and enacted that the courts should begin 
at once the yearly custom of appointing constables, in such 
hundreds as required them, to suppress tumultuous meetings 
of slaves. Every constable so appointed was required to visit 
all suspected places in his hundred, once a month, and could 
give not over thirty-nine lashes to every negro who might be 
found away from home without a permit from his master. 
For the fulfilment of such duties, the constable was to be 
paid five hundred pounds of tobacco; and he might call on 
any person to aid him. For a white man who should refuse 
assistance, there was a penalty of one hundred pounds of to- 
bacco ; a negro refused on pain of a whipping. Afterwards, 
such duties belonged to all constables, under penalty for neg- 
glect of not less than one hundred dollars. And any person 
who refused his aid when summoned, could be fined not 
more than that sum nor less than twenty dollars. The special 
pay for the constable was eight dollars ; but after 1806, every 
constable had, before he could receive this, to get a certificate 
from at least two respectable citizens of his hundred, bearing 
witness to his industry and fidelity in carrying out the law.^ 

By a law of 1715, persons who entertained or kept away 
from home any servant or slave for the space of a day or 
night became liable to a fine of five hundred pounds of to- 
bacco. This seems to have been taken advantage of by per- 
sons — many crafty and ill-disposed persons, the act says — 
who entertained servants and slaves for a few hours at a time 
and at dead of night, and also enticed these to steal their mas- 
ters' goods, and to commit other disorders. So the fine was 
changed in 1748 to one hundred pounds an hour; "to be 



1 1695, 6 ; 1723, 15 ; 1806, 81 ; Code of 1860, art. 23, 30 and art. 66, 63. 
■M715, 44; 1748, 19. 



Slaves. 101 

recovered before a single magistrate, if not over six hundred 
in all. If the offender could not pay he might be whipped. 
The penalty afterwards became a fine of two dollars an hour. 
Servants and slaves who harbored others unlawfully were to 
be whipped by order of a magistrate. After 1723, also, the 
owner of a plantation was directed to send home, by whipping 
if necessary, any negroes who might be found there, without 
permission or errand from their masters. And any person 
who encouraged slaves to meet in numbers on his place, except 
on lawful occasions, became liable to a fine of one thousand 
pounds of tobacco — afterwards of twenty dollars. 

The constables of towns, also, were usually ordered by 
special acts of Assembly to see, among other duties, that 
negroes did not gather in noisy groups in the streets, or at 
meetings, or remain out late at night. For instance, a con- 
stable was appointed in 1800 for the town of Cambridge, as 
the peace of the town was much disturbed by frequent meet- 
ings of negroes, and the constable of the hundred had hap- 
pened to live out of the town. The constable appointed for 
the village of Newmarket in Dorchester county, in 1804, was 
to prevent disorderly meetings of blacks there and in the 
neighborhood, and to give moderate punishment, under the 
direction of any justice of the peace, to all such as should bfe 
found strolling the streets at night, or frequenting the houses 
of persons other than their masters, without permission.^ 
Often, in towns with a considerable black population, a bell 
was rung at a certain hour in the evening — as nine in winter 
and ten in summer — and the black who remained out of doors 
thereafter had to rely on his own good character, or on the 
carelessness or good nature of the constable, or his heels, to 
save him from punishment. 

These restrictions, both in county and town, were not the 
result alone of fears of insurrection or of loss by runaways. 
They were largely for the ordinary preservation of the peace. 

U800, 6; 1804,70, &c. 



102 The Negro in Maryland. 

For instance, the Society of Friends who held yearly meet- 
ings in Anne Arundel and Talbot counties, were much annoyed 
by the numbers of persons who met and drank liquors in the 
neighborhood of their meeting-houses. Soon after 1700, they 
petititioned the Governor and Council to have an end put to 
such abuses. Finally, after several complaints, a law was 
made in 1725, to forbid the sale of liquors within certain dis- 
tances of the meeting houses, except at inns. But the orderly 
Friends were still troubled by the racing of horses and the 
meetings of negroes — great crowds of idle whites and blacks, 
they said, drank and behaved riotously there — until, in 1747, 
horse racing was forbidden, also, and the constables of the 
neighborhood were specially ordered to disperse all crowds of 
slaves, at the times of the yearly meetings, if necessary by 
whipping and by the assistance of a posse.^ Besides such 
ordinary measures for good order, there was the need, often, 
of reasonable discipline in the care of servants and slaves, 
if the master was not to lose by their picking and stealing, 
and was to get good work from them. Could they frequent 
the grogshops, his corn and tobacco might easily be turned 
into liquor ; and were they up for the night, his work would 
suffer by day. It was as natural for the master of servants 
or slaves then, to wish them at home by nine or ten at night, 
as for good housekeepers to make the rule, to-day, that after 
reasonable hours there shall be no company in the kitchen.^ 
Masters were caused much trouble by the sale of liquor to 
servants and slaves. The early court records show that care 
was taken by a license system, to keep inns from becoming 
nuisances. One landland of St. Mary's, for instance, gave 
bond in 1660, in the sum of a thousand pounds of tobacco and 

1 Colonial Church Life in Maryland, 123. Act 1725, 6; 1747, 17. 

*The good Friends of Pennsylvania who met in yearly meeting in 1696, 
not only advised their brethren not to increase slaves among them, but to 
bring the slaves they had to meetings, to keep them from loose and idle 
living, and from rambling abroad of First Days and other times. (Janney's 
History of the Friends, 111, 179.) 



Slaves. 103 

casks, that he would, for five years, have good order kept at 
his house, especially at times of divine service, and would not 
allow servants and apprentices to get liquors or to remain tip- 
ling there without their masters' knowledge. Over a hundred 
years later, an act of Assembly authorized the city of Annapolis 
to regulate taverns, as, we read, many of the servants and 
slaves there were injured and their masters deprived of their 
services, by the sale to them of rum and spirits. After 1780, 
any tavern keej^er in the State who should harbor, or sell any 
liquors to any servant, apprentice or slave, without written 
leave from the master, became liable for each offence to forfeit 
to the master one hundred and sixty pounds of tobacco, — 
afterwards, ten dollars.^ To prevent the sale of stolen goods, 
there was enacted, in 1692, that no one should trade or barter 
with any servants or slaves without permission from their 
owners, under penalty of two thousand pounds of tobacco, 
half to the government and half to the owner of the goods. 
And if the value of these was over a thousand pounds, the 
owner, also, could enter suit for damages against the receiver 
— who, if he could not pay this further fine, received thirty 
stripes on his bare back. The law afterwards read that no 
person should buy or get in any way from any slave any 
goods whatever, or should sell anything to any slave, without 
written permission from his owner or overseer, under penalty 
of a fine of five dollars, on conviction before a magistrate.^ 
Also, after 1796, any slave who should sell liquor or keep 
entertainment at any muster-ground, race track or other public 
place, without his master's permission, became liable to arrest 
and a whipping by order of a magistrate.^ 



iSee Prov. Court Eecords, 1658-1662, 397, 411. 1779, 11; 1780, 24; 
Code of 1860. 

^ W. H. & L., 91 ; 1715, 44 ; Code of 1860. These acts, said the Court of 
Appeals, in 1837, did not imply any right in slaves to deal or make con- 
tracts, the penalty on the free person showing the reverse. Servants and 
slaves had been encouraged to sell stolen goods. (9 G. & J., 14.) 

' 1796, 67. 



104 The Negro in Maryland. 

In 1666, the House of Delegates called the attention of the 
Council to a bill deemed very important, to prohibit ser- 
vants and negroes from keeping pigs for their own benefit ; 
but the Council replied that such a law was not necessary, as 
every master had the power to forbid swine to his slaves and 
to his servants — unless the indentures of the servants hap- 
pened to give them special privileges. In 1723, there was 
enacted that masters who allowed slaves to keep any horses 
or cattle or swine, as their own, should forfeit five hundred 
pounds of tobacco and the animals. There were, afterwards, 
no such restrictions.^ A slave could not legally hold prop- 
erty : whether he had possessions or privileges depended, as 
the Council said in 1666, on the master's will. Generally, the 
slave had at least a garden and chicken coop, from whose pro- 
ceeds he got such luxuries as coffee and tobacco. Some mas- 
ters bought what the slaves raised — even at the risk, occa- 
sionally, of paying for a sweet potato or a chicken that was 
already theirs ; others gave their slaves permits to sell and 
buy ; others, still, lay asleep in the big house, while the black 
quietly did his bartering at some corner store or on some boat 
in the river. The majority of slaves in the coast States worked 
by tasks ; when the allotted work was done daily, the slave's 
time was his own. On Saturday afternoons, some slaves had 
less than the usual work to do, and it was the general custom 
to give holidays at Christmas and Easter-tide. At such times, 
the market places of the county towns might be tlironged 
with blacks. 

At the session of Assembly of 1787, the House received 
from the Senate a bill to prevent the inconveniences arising 
from slaves who were allowed to act as freemen. The first 
section placed a penalty of five pounds a month on all mas- 



' Md. Arch., II, 23, itc. One of the resohitions of tlie convention of 
slaveholders of Worcester county, in 1858, was that slave owners and slave 
liirers be asked to discontinue tlie practice of allowing slaves to have corn 
patclies. 



Slaves. 105 

ters who should allow slaves to go at large or hire them- 
selves out, except during ten days at harvest time. A motion 
to strike out this section was lost by a vote of thirty-two to 
fifteen. The second section provided that no slaves, except 
such as were generally known to be pilots, should be allowed 
by their masters, under a like penalty, to run any boat over 
twenty feet long which was used to carry goods belonging to 
any other person than the owner of the boat. This section 
was struck out ; but the bill, as amended and passed, excepted 
regular pilots. And a person who should hire any slave un- 
lawfully, was also made liable to the penalty of five pounds a 
month. At the session of 1794, there were several attempts 
made for further legislation — evidently for greater restrictions. 
One bill, introduced in the House, was to prevent slaves 
from acting as free in several counties. Baltimore county 
was added by a vote of thirty-nine to seventeen, and a motion 
to except Baltimore city was defeated by seven votes — though 
the delegates from the city were opposed to the bill. Motions 
to add Anne Arundel, Talbot and Cecil counties were all lost, 
and the bill as passed was rejected in the Senate. In 1802, 
the Senate offered a bill for an act by which the penalty on 
the master who should let out the slave, was raised to forty 
dollars. This the House would not agree to, although it 
would tend, the Senate argued, to remedy an evil which had 
risen to such a degree as to require legislative interference. 
The House maintained that a fine of twenty-five dollars on 
both the master and the hirer of a slave was sufficient. The 
next year, the Senate again brought in a bill, and again the 
House rejected it.^ By an act of 1817, there was made an 
exception of twenty days at harvest time, instead often days. 
The maximum penalty for one who should make any contract 
with a slave for his services, or who should let his slave go at 
large or hire himself out, remained twenty dollars a month. 



1 House Journal, 1787, 150, &c.; act 1787, 33; House Journal, 1802, 43, 
56, &c. 



106 The Negro in Maryland. 

In 1821, a special law required constables in Worcester and 
Caroline counties to arrest and bring before a justice all slaves, 
except regular pilots, who might be found going at large or 
hiring themselves out, or who might not have fixed homes on 
their owner's estates, or be duly hired out in the employ of 
some person. If the justice found that the law was being 
violated, he should let out the slave for the rest of the current 
year ; the proceeds to be given to the county. A constable 
was entitled to two dollars for thus taking up and letting out 
a slave. This act was extended, at the next session, to Som- 
erset and Queen Anne's counties.^ 

But competition between white and black was not without 
some influence, we presume, in bringing about such legisla- 
tion. A petition was presented the House of Delegates, 
in 1808, from "the owners of hack-stages, draymen, carters 
and laborers " of Baltimore, who complained that they were 
"deprived of employment by the interference of slaves who 
engross the same." This was referred to the next Assembly.^ 

Despite the laws, slaves were often hiring themselves, or 
being hired out. At the slaveholders' conventions, these lib- 
erties were always severely denounced. The papers tell us, for 
instance, how the grand jury of Anne Arundel, in 1854, gave 
particular attention to doing away with the custom of slaves 
hiring themselves out by permission of their masters ; and how 
the citizens of a certain district in Somerset county, at a public 
meeting early in 1860, expressed their disapproval of the 
practice of allowing slaves hired out to be masters of their own 
time, and of that of hiring them out with the provision of 
their own consent to the agreements.^ Not a few slaves in 

' 1817, 104; Code of 1860, 66, 29: 1821, 183; 1822, 115. In 1806, sundry 
citizens of St. Mary's county petitioned, without result, that slaves be pre- 
vented from acting as pilots. 

MIouse Journals, 1806, 20; 1808, 75. 

Mkltimore Sun, April 28th, 1854; Jan. 20th, 18G0. In 1849, a bill to 
prevent the employment of slaves by nicrohants, shopkeepers and traders, 
without the written consent of their owners, was laid on the table. 



Slaves. 107 

Maryland, particularly in the cities, were allowed by their 
masters to live and act as freemen, and also to buy their own 
freedom by their extra earnings. But this was by the suffer- 
ance of others only and by no right of their own. Thus, in 
one case, the owner of a slave who had been hired out to some 
third party in Baltimore for a time, finally agreed with him 
to sell him his freedom for two hundred dollars. This was 
in 1833, and for two years the negro went at large and 
acted as a free man, earning in various vocations — now by 
keeping an oyster house, now a boot-black shop — the money 
for his freedom. By June, 1835, he had paid, through an 
attorney or agent, all but twenty-seven dollars, and received 
receipts on account of his freedom. During the summer fol- 
lowing, he went to New York, and was a waiter on a North 
River boat. On returning in October, he tendered the balance 
of payment, which was refused by his owner's agent, and he 
was soon arrested as a runaway slave and sold. The Court 
of Appeals — on an appeal from the City Court — held that 
slaves could not enter into valid contracts with their masters, 
any more than with any one else, nor enforce any alleged con- 
tract at law, but agreed with the lower court in setting this 
negro free — under the old law which declared free any slave 
who should enter Maryland to remain.^ 

There was enacted in 1752, that slave owners who should 
neglect to provide for old or disabled slaves, or should allow 
them to leave their homes, or wander about begging, becoming 
nuisances to the public, should forfeit four pounds to the 

1 9 G. & J. 14. Bland & Woolfolk vs. Negro Beverly Bowling, 1837. An 
interesting case came before the Court of Appeals in 1850. Some twenty 
years before, a certain slave woman was allowed by her master to go to 
Baltimore, and to live with her reputed husband there — the husband to pay 
a given sum yearly for her services. When her family became large, this 
payment was not exacted. She lived as free, renting houses, hiring herself 
out, &c. She was then seized by a representative of her owner, who stated 
that there was a report that one of the family was about to run away. There 
were various questions in the case before the courts. The Circuit Court 
gave her freedom, but the Court of Appeals denied it. (9 Gill, 120.) 



108 The Negro in Maryland. 

county court for the use of the county. In 1 790, because, we 
read, humanity required that faithful servants should be sup- 
ported by their masters, another act provided that any master 
who should allow a slave who was aged, or infirm from any 
accident, to wander abroad, or to lack proper care and cover, 
should be examined by the county court, and, if guilty, required 
to give good bond in the sum of thirty pounds, for future care 
of the negro. This act, of course, did not apply to a slave who 
might run away contrary to the will of the owner. After 1796, 
the bond was one hundred dollars.^ Aged or infirm slaves 
who were occasionally left without anyone to support them, 
were cared for by the levy courts and afterwards by the county 
commissioners. Some lived and died at the regular alms- 
houses. Old slaves were sometimes left in want by persons 
who died insolvent, and the county authorities were specially 
ordered to care suitably for these. 



At a council meeting at Annapolis, in 1699, at which some 
of the King's instructions were read on the conversion of 
negroes and Indians, Governor Blakiston said he was in- 
formed that several masters hindered their negroes, though 
baptized, from going to church. On being told that there 
was no law to prevent such abuses, he recommended the pas- 
sage of one ; but nothing seems to have been done.^ There 
was enacted in 1 723, that no person whatever should work on 
the Lord's day, nor should command or allow any children, 
servants or slaves to work in anyway — works of necessity and 
charity excepted. Nor should children or menials be allowed 
to profane that day by unlawful pastimes and recreations, on 
penalty of a fine of two hundred pounds of tobacco from the 



' 1752, 1 ; 1790, 9 ; 1796, G7 : Code of 1860, 66, 26. 
* Council Proceedings, X, 211. 



Slaves, 109 

master. This fine afterwards became five dollars/ Any privi- 
leges of church-going which slaves might enjoy depended, 
much as with children, on the disposition of the masters. We 
have seen the prejudice that was widely spread at first, against 
the conversion of the blacks ; but when men found that 
Christianity did not work manumission, and after the earnest 
efforts made by the missionaries, such as Dr. Bray in Maryland, 
most masters seemed very willing for their slaves to worship. 
Some preferred that they should attend the churches of the 
whites, fearful of the teachings, perhaps, of preachers who 
were ignorant or, possibly, hostile to slavery. Others allowed 
their slaves to join societies of the blacks which were more 
or less under the supervision of regular church associations. 
It was customary for certain portions of churches to be set 
apart for colored persons. In an act for the erection of a 
church in St. Anne's parish in Annapolis, in 1774, there was 
stipulated the provision for a place, in addition to the public 
gallery, for those servants, and another for slaves, that might 
attend service." Masters and slaves knelt at the same com- 
munion table. Of sixty-one communicants that belonged to 
one parish in Anne Arundel, in 1790, thirteen were entered 
as " Black Brethren ; " and a piece of the church glebe next 
to the church yard, was given these, by their request, for a 
burial place for themselves and their descendants. We find 
an interesting vote of the vestry of another parish, in 1747, 
that the churchwardens prevent the negroes from going in 
among the white people to disturb them, as they frequently 
did, and from going in and out of church during service. 
But in this, we may add, the blacks had had the example 
set them by their betters ; for ten years before, the sexton had 
been ordered to keep the vestry-house locked, as persons were 
in the habit of running in and out of church in cold weather, 



1 1723, 16. 
2 1774, 11. 



110 The Negro in Maryland. 

to visit the fire that was kept in the vestiy.^ In the genera- 
tion before the Civil War, many earnest workers were busied 
in the South in the religious instruction of the blacks. There 
was never anything in the laws of Maryland to prevent slaves 
from holding religious services quietly on their masters estates; 
but with the Southampton insurrection and the growth of abo- 
litionism throughout the land, some restrictions were placed on 
religious and other associations of the blacks — free blacks as 
well as slaves. 



Ordinarily, the constables and magistrates were looked to 
to enforce the laws concerning blacks as well as whites. But 
after 1820, any justice in Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, 
Prince George's and St. Mary's counties was empowered, on 
the application of three judicious persons, to call out patroling 
parties to search the neighborhood, for from four to eight 
hours, to see that the negroes were at home and orderly. 
These patroling parties were formed of citizens subject to the 
militia duty, were limited to fifteen in a party, and were to be 
commanded by discreet persons named by the justice. They 
received fifty cents a night when on duty. The commissioners 
of Frederick county were soon empowered to appoint justices 
to summon a patrol whenever necessary. And, after 1856, 
the commissioners of Kent county could appoint if they saw 
fit, a dozen or so special police to enforce the laws against the 
blacks.^ But it was at times of excitement only — of rumors 



^Colonial Church Life in Maryland. 

" 1820, 200. Calvert county was added by 1822, 85. 1821, 148 ; 1826, 
210 ; 1856, 177. 

Slaves could not carry guns or "other offensive weapons" off their master's 
estates — a prohibition wliicli seems to liave been made in 1704, at a time 
wlien Romanists and negroes were looked on, as we saw, as [wssible enemies 
of the government. If they did so, they could be wliipped and the guns 
be forfeited, if belonging to them. Before that time negroes and other 



Slaves. Ill 

of runaways or uprisings — that the patrols were called out ; 
and at such times, impromptu patroling parties helped to exe- 
cute the laws everywhere. For instance, in the summer of 
1835, a stranger who had been seen talking with the negroes 
and attending some of their meetings, in the neighborhood of 
Chestertown, was put in jail for examination. The town, 
wrote a gentleman to Niles' Register, was in an uproar for 
several days, and was guarded every night by armed men of 
the greatest respectability. At one time in the winter of 
1857, the patrols were out nightly in Prince George's county — 
but the papers soon announced that the excitement had sub- 
sided, that the patrol had expired by limitation, and that 
people did not think that there had been any intention of a 
rising among the blacks. The slaveholders' convention of 
Worcester county in 1858, resolved to call on constables and 
magistrates to enforce the laws for watching the blacks. On 
the night after an alarm of insurrection in Somerset county, 
in 1859, a patrol was organized, and search was made, with 
guns and other weapons, in the houses of free blacks in the 
neighborhood. In a part of Montgomery county a meeting 
of citizens was held after John Brown's attack on Harper's 
Ferry, to denounce Brown and express sympathy for the 
Union ; and a " protective committee " of twenty-four mem- 
bers was appointed, to call a meeting of citizens whenever the 
public safety was endangered, and to call out such of the 
volunteer companies as might then be needed to patrol the 
neighborhood. It is stated also, that the commissioners of 
St. Mary's county appointed a patrol in the autumn of 1860, 
in each district, to visit their neighborhood at least once a 
week at night, to disperse all negro meetings and arrest all 
abolitionists.^ For patrols that were called out by the sheriffs 

slaves had been exempted from training or any military service whatever 
(LL. 3, 40, &c. ; Code of 1860). White servants were enlisted on emergen- 
cies only (1715, 43). See Chapter on the Free Negro. 

^ See Niles' Register, Aug. 22d, 1835 ; Baltimore Sun (quoting the local 
papers often), Jan. 9th, 1857 ; Jan. 4th, 1860 ; Oct. 13th, 1860. See Chapter 
on the Free Negro. 



112 The Negro in Maryland. 

in Allegany, Cecil, Frederick and Harford counties, after the 
attack on Harper's Ferry, the State paid some fifteen hundred 
dollars.^ 

But the patrol, like most of the laws which it was intended 
to enforce, was directed, in the latter days of slavery, as well 
against the free black as the slave. 



One of the most interesting phases of our subject, as a study 
of historical development, is the growth of the slave code 
touching crimes and punishments. 

It is notorious that the English criminal law, and the admin- 
istration of justice under it, were exceedingly severe down 
to the present century. The sentences of the Court of Star 
Chamber are well known. In one case, in 1630, a Scottish 
divine, for writing a scurrilous attack on the bishops, was 
sentenced not only to be degraded from orders and to pay a 
large fine, but to be whipped, set in the pillory, to have one ear 
cut off, one side of his nose slit, and one cheek branded with 
S. S. (sower of sedition), to have these repeated a week later 
in another part of London, and then be imprisoned for life. 
These cases may be regarded as exceptional, but in all parts 
of England hanging was a common punishment for many 
offences. It is stated on the authority of a magistrate of Som- 
ersetshire, that in that county, in the year 1596, there were 
thirty-seven persons whipped, thirty-five burned in the hand, 
and forty executed ; and many among the large number dis- 
charged, deserved, in his opinion, similar punishments. Two 
years later, in a neighboring county, there were seventy-four 
persons sentenced to be hanged in a year. IMore than one- 
half of these were condemned at quarter sessions ; several of 
them for stealing sheep. Thougli the sentence of death was 
often connnuted, as to branding, whij)ping, or transportation to 

M 861-2, Ch. 163. 



Slaves. 113 

the Colonies, the criminal law remained exceedingly severe 
during the eighteenth century. A woman who killed her hus- 
band, or a maid-servant who killed her master or mistress, 
could be burned to death, until 1790. Nor was this law obso- 
lete, for there is mention of a woman burned in 1782 and of 
another in 1784, though they were jjrobably strangled before 
the torch was applied. In 1752, it was enacted that persons 
convicted of murder should be executed with little delay, and 
that the bodies should in no case be buried, but either be hung 
in chains or given over for dissection ; and such was the law 
until William IV. Inhabitants of London were accustomed, 
as late as 1745, to see heads and portions of human bodies 
nailed up on Temple Bar. The last heads were those of nine 
Jacobites, of the Revolution of '45, who had been hanged, cut 
down, disembowelled, beheaded, quartered, and their hearts 
thrown into a fire — all before the eyes of the public. The 
spikes which held the heads were not removed till this century. 
The pillory was not abolished in England till 1837; and 
whipping has remained the penalty for certain offences.' 

It was as natural for the colonists to follow, largely, the 
customs of their old home as it was for them to continue to 
speak English. In Maryland, it was specially provided that 
justice was to be administered, where there was no special law 
or fixed usage of the Province, by English law and usage, in 
so far as this was deemed applicable by the courts.'^ Each 
county court was ordered to keep the usual branding irons, 
and the pillory and stocks without the court-house, and the 
ducking stool as near by as possible. The corporal punishments 
given, in those days, in all the colonies, are so well known as 
to make examples almost superfluous. When Capt. Josias 
Fendall was found guilty, in 1681, of speaking several sedi- 
tious words against the government of Maryland, the Provin- 



' See Pike's History of Crime, Stevens' Criminal Law, Wade's History of 
tlie Middle and Working Classes, &c. 
*See Md. Arch., I, 147, 158, 192, &c. 



114 The Negro in Maryland. 

cial Court showed great clemency in giving liiin only fine and 
banishment. This sentence, the Court said, was as favorable 
as could be expected ; for an early law allowed not merely fine 
and imprisonment, but boring of the tongue, slitting the nose, 
cutting off one or both ears, whipping, branding with a red- 
hot iron — any one or more of these, as the court should think 
fit.^ It was not treason and sedition, and such unusual crimes 
only, that were thus punished. The colonists were evidently 
much troubled by hog-stealers, and a law of \QQ>Q, declaring 
that previous acts had been insufficient, enacted that a hog- 
stealer should pay the treble damages, and also, for the first 
offence, have four hours in the pillory and his ears cropped; 
and for the second offence, be branded in the forehead with 
the letter H. A third offence could be punished with death.^ 

Some of the early laws reflected the class distinctions, so 
strongly felt in England. Treason was to be punished, in 
addition to forfeiture of all goods and franchises, by drawing, 
hanging and quartering of a man, and by drawing and burn- 
ing of a woman, — except in case of the lord of a manor, who 
should be beheaded. Among the various penalties for burglary, 
house-burning, sorcery, &c., was service for a term of years — 
but this could not be inflicted on a gentleman. Another law, 
for rules of justice, prescribed that no corporal punishment 
be given a gentleman, except by virtue of statute law of the 
Province.^ Of greater interest still is the law of 1723, which 
gave the stocks and whipping-post to blasphemers and drunk- 
ards who could not pay their fines — and who were not free- 
holders or other reputable persons. 

The punishments provided by law of the Province especially 
for white servants, and incident largely to the custom of service, 
were very few. It was at first the law that servants who re- 
fused to perform the lawful orders of their masters were to be 



» Md. Arch., V, 328, I, 248. 
»Md. Arch., II, 140. 
'M(l. Airh., I, 71, loS, 184. 



Slaves. 115 

whipped or otherwise corrected by order of, and in the discre- 
tion of, a magistrate. Ou the other hand, a master who refused 
to carry out his covenant with a servant, or who denied him 
or her proper food and care, was to be imprisoned by the 
magistrate until surety were given for the performance of his 
duty.^ It was the law for many years that a servant, if proven 
guilty of causing a servant-woman to be with child, should 
recompense the master of the woman for half his loss in her 
work. But the father, if a freeman, had to pay the whole loss, 
by servitude or otherwise. The case, whether of freeman or 
servant, came before the county court.^ Any person who 
traded with an indentured servant, without license from the 
master, was liable to a fine, and the servant who purloined or 
traded with his master's goods, to a whipping. For a second 
offence, the servant was to be branded, in addition. These 
penalties were evidently given by a magistrate ; but if the 
freeman trading with the servant was unable to pay his fine, he 
was bound over to the higher court, and could be there sen- 
tenced to a whipping, if found guilty. Later, all cases of 
petty thieving, not belonging to the Provincial Court or to 
special commissioners, were tried in the county courts, and 
the accused, freeman or servant, if proven guilty by one good 
evidence, was to restore fourfold, and to suffer the pillory and 
whipping. If a freeman had not goods, he paid his fine by a 
term of servitude, as did the servant. Nor was there any 
difference prescribed in the severer penalties for repeated 
offences.^ Masters were accustomed to administer some jus- 
tice, themselves ; but the law forbade them after 1715, to give 
more than ten lashes for any one offence ; providing that 
they might carry troublesome servants before a justice of 
peace, to be given such whipping, up to thirty-nine lashes, 
as he deemed fit, after hearing the complaint. The cases of 



iMd. Arch., I, 53. 

^ Laws of 1662, 1674, 1715. 

^Md. Arch., I, 501 : Laws of 1704, 1715. 



116 The Negro in Maryland. 

masters who might be accused of neglecting or abusing their 
servants liad been changed from the jurisdiction of the mag- 
istrates in first offences to that of the county courts. Ser- 
vants who absented themselves from their masters' service 
were adjudged before the county courts to renewed service, 
ten days for one absent day, at the expiration of their term. 
Persons entertaining such servants were fined ; and after 1748, 
those wdio could not pay the fine could be whipped, and put 
under security for good behavior.^ This custom of white ser- 
vice practically died out toward the close of the eighteenth 
century, — at the time when criminal law was being changed 
by the changes in public feeling. 

We have seen already how careful and judicious the gov- 
ernment of Maryland was in its relations with the Indians. 
It sometimes vied with the customs of those Indians who 
were at war, by offering a bounty for every ear of a dead 
Indian ; and in a treaty ^ith a tribe recently at war, is the 
stipulation that the colonists might shoot down any Indian 
found killing cattle or hogs.^ But, in most of the treaties, it 
was expressly stated that all Indians who might kill English- 
men should be given up to the authorities, to be tried for 
murder as a white man would be. We find mention of a 
special commission of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of an 
Indian who had murdered a white servant.^ A treaty with 
the Nanticokcs in 1687, provided that an Indian who should 
commit any ofl'ence against the English, — l)e it murder or hog 
stealing or helping runaway servants and slaves, — should be 
tried by Elnglish law, and that any Englishman who might 
injure the Indians should be tried by the same law, also. At 
about the same time, a Poconioke Indiati was imprisoned for 
rape on an English woman, and the Council duly considered 



' 1715, 44; 1748, 19. 
■•'Md. Arch., Ill, 502, 580, 433, 486. 

*Md. Arch., II, l'J5, V, 470. An Indian convicted of murdering a white 
w:is shot at St. Mary's, 16G9. 



Slaves. 117 

in what manner he shoultl be tried, and decided by the statute 
law. Thereupon several of the chiefs came before the Council 
and desired to be informed of the English law, which was 
duly expounded to them, and which they promised not to 
break in future. As it was found that the woman had wil- 
lingly erred, the Indian was merely whipped, according to 
English law, and advised by the Court to be more circum- 
spect. In 1648, four Patuxent Indians were brought before 
the Provincial Court, charged with stealing and killing hogs, 
and with other thieving, and it was stated to the Court that 
intolerable injuries had been suffered by the colonists at the 
hands of the neighboring Indians. The prisoners, brought to 
the bar, denied the charge, (there was evidently no objec- 
tion to their testimony, be it noted), stating that a hammer 
which they had had on the day mentioned, had been purchased 
from another Indian two years before. And the plaintiff not 
being able to produce furtiier evidence, the jury declared not 
guilty, and the Indians were discharged by the Governor. 
We find that two Indians were executed, by sentence of the 
Provincial Court, for the murder of two negroes.^ 

For three-quarters of a century after the settlement of Mary- 
land, the negroes in the Province were few in number, and 
were nearly all, if not all, slaves. The punishments which were 
administered on the plantation were sometimes too severe, as 
we shall see, in the case of both white servants and slaves, 
though the laws early forbade excessive abuse or punishment 
to these alike. Whether justice was administered by magis- 
trates and judges with greater rigor to the black than to the 
white, we cannot say ; but during this long period, be it noted, 
there was no special provision by law for the trial and punish- 
ment of slaves for serious offences. For murder or burglary 
or any serious crime, any offender, white, black, or Indian, 
was brought before the Provincial Court, to receive, we pre- 
sume, the same fair dispensation of justice. In 1700, there 

1 Md. Arch., IV, 409 ; V, 558. Davis' Day Star, 151. 



118 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

were no more slaves, probably, id Maryland, than there were 
in Massachusetts at the time slavery was abolished there ; and 
in Maryland then, as in Massachusetts always, there was no 
special code for the trial and punishment of slaves.^ 

But the slave trade was soon carried on with vigor, and the 
blacks grew to be a considerable part of the ])opulation of 
Maryland. White servants were then numerous, many of 
them mere adventurers and good-for-nothings. At the same 
time, transportation was made the penalty in England for 
various felonies, and English jails were in part emptied into 
the Colonies. Maryland had prohibited for some years the 
importation of these felons, and a further act was passed in 
1723, to prevent the "great evils" arising therefrom, but the 
Lord Proprietor refused his assent. It was at this time that 
the law against petty thieving — of goods worth over twelve 
pence — gave the ordinary four-fold restitution, and branding 
or other corporal punishment, saving life, for a second offence ; 
when blasphemers could be punished, in addition to fine, with 
boring of the tongue, and branding and even death for 
repeated offences ; when prisoners " languishing " in jail for 
debt, were warned not to perjure themselves, at the risk of two 
hours in the pillory and the loss of their left ears ; and when 
men were executed for burglary and jail-breaking. It was 
unfortunate for the community as well as the blacks, that these 
Africans — fresh from Africa, with much that was brutal, very 
ignorant and very imitative — should have been thrown so 
much with the worst elements of the whites. Then, as the 



* We find mention of slaves tried for capital punishment in the Provincial 
Court, as all other persons were (as Council Record, Oct. 16th, 1G88, &c). 

In 1703, an Eastern f;hore Indian came before the Council at Annapolis 
with the complaint that his cabin had been broken into, and various things 
stolen tiierefrom by a certain negro slave, and demanded in return sixty-nine 
dressed deer skins. On Iiis agreement, iinally, to take sixty good skins, tlie 
Council ordered that the master of the .vlave should pay these to liini, and 
tliat tlie slave be whipped. Otlicrwisc the slave was to be tried in the 
rrovincial Court. (Council Ivccords, X, 327.) 



Slaves. 119 

population was increasing, the plantations spread out more and 
more, making a sparsely settled country. One's neighbors 
were few and far between. The church may have been distant ; 
the court house and the jail were probably miles away. 

With the increase of the blacks we find — it may have been 
only because attention was thereby called to them as never 
before — a growino; difference between the leo;al status of the 
black and of the white. The act of 1715 provided for the 
discharge of all persons held as suspected runaways and not 
claimed within six months — except negroes and mulattoes.^ 
Constables had already been authorized to suppress with the 
ordinary whipping, of not over thirty-nine stripes, all fre- 
quent and noisy meetings of negroes and slaves.^ In 1717, 
whereas, reads the law, negro and Indian slaves often commit 
misdemeanors or steal, and escape without punishment, or else 
the owners are put to expense by bringing them to the county 
courts, — there was enacted that any one justice might try 
slaves for small offences, and might order as many stripes as 
he deemed fit, not exceeding forty .^ It was also found that 
some masters of slaves who had committed heinous offences, 
had concealed the crimes, thus hindering the execution of jus- 
tice, rather than lose the slaves ; so masters of slaves sentenced 
to death were paid three-fourths their loss. But masters 
were loath to lose, and the recompense was afterwards in- 
creased to the full value of the slave. It was at the same 
time that the testimony of Indians and negroes was declared 

^ 1715, 44. By the act of 1715, also, masters were forbidden to give over 
ten laslies or to abuse or overwork "any servant whatever." The earlier 
acts of 1692 and 1704 forbade the abuse or excessive punislmient of Eng- 
lish servants and slaves. From the way in which slaves, and servants and 
slaves together are expressly mentioned in the act of 1715 in other clauses, 
Ave presume that the expression, "'any servant whatsoever," did not include 
slaves, who could be punished in the discretion of the master, unless, indeed, 
he was so harsh as to be prosecuted for cruelty. If so, this change in the 
law is very interesting. 

* 1695, 6; 1723, 15, &c. 

mil, 13. 



120 The Negro in Maryland.. 

invalid in all cases concerning M'hites — and Indians and 
blacks, too, where life or limb were inv^olved. The act of 
1723, enjoining constables to snppress noisy meetings of blacks, 
made any slave who should strike a white person at any time, 
liable to lose an ear by order of a magistrate. The owner of 
a plantation was authorized also to whip any slave who might 
be found thereon without proper business ; and this act pro- 
vided further, that slaves who might run away and remain 
out-lying in the woods, killing hogs and cattle, and who 
raight resist capture, could be shot lawfully by their pur- 
suers.' After 1729 — as there was some doubt as to whether 
those who broke and entered buildings not connected with 
dwelling-houses, might not plead benefit of clergy — any per- 
son convicted of breaking into any store-house and of stealing 
from thence to the value of five shillings, was to be executed. 
And \^•hereas, we read, several murders of masters and other 
cruel murders had been lately committed by negroes, which 
cruelties they were instigated to commit because they have no 
sense of shame or ap[)rehonsion of future rewards or punish- 
ments, and as the manner of executing offenders as prescribed 
by the laws of England, is not sufficient to deter from such 
offences a people who consider only the severity of a punish- 
ment, any slave, continued the act, convicted by confession 
or verdict of jury, of murder or of wilfully burning a dwell- 
ing-house, may be punished, in the judgment of the court, by 
having his right hand cut off before being hanged. And the 
body, in such a case, might be beheaded and quartered, and 
set up in the most public places of the county where the crime 
was committed.^ A few years later, benefit of clergy was 
taken away from all persons convicted of breaking into any 
tobacco-houses or other outhouses, reasonably built and secured, 
and stealing therefrom to the value of five shillings. And 
slaves found guilty in the county courts of rambling about at 
night or riding horses at daytime without leave, or of running 

M723, 15. 
« 1729, 4. 



Slaves. 121 

away, were to be whipped, cropped or branded, or otherwise 
punished, but so as not to endanger life or to render them 
unfit for labor.^ A few years later, again, benefit of clergy 
was taken away from any person who might steal a horse or 
burn a boat of some size, or abet in these crimes. Servants 
and slaves who harbored or entertained their fellows, now be- 
came liable to whipping, by order of a magistrate.^ In 1751, 
the testimony of imported convicts was declared valid against 
other such convicts in criminal cases ; because, says the law, 
murders, burglaries and other oifences had been very frequent, 
endangering the lives and property of the colonists, — oifences 
generally committed by imported convicts and those whom 
they seduce to join them, which the convicts are encouraged 
to commit, as they know that they cannot be called on to tes- 
tify against each other.^ Closely following, is an act for the 
more effectual punisliment of slaves; because, says the pre- 
amble, the laws for that purpose are found insufficient to pre- 
vent great crimes, and to further the speedy administration of 
justice. Benefit of clergy, therefore, was taken away from 
any slave duly convicted of conspiring or attempting to raise 
insurrection, to murder or poison anyone, to commit rape on 
a white woman, or to burn any house or out-house containing 
any person or goods. Hitherto a slave, like his master or any 
wliite, would have been tried for a serious crime in the Pro- 
vincial Court. Now, there was enacted that he should be 
tried for any offence which might be punished with death, at 
the next term of the county court. And he might be con- 
victed on the testimony of other slaves, corroborated with such 
pregnant circumstances as should convince the jury of his guilt.* 



1 1737, 2, 7. 

"1748, 19. 

M751, 11. 

* 1751, 14. If slaves testified, they were warned by the presiding judge 
to tell the truth, and were told the punishment they would incur by per- 
jury — the cropping of one ear and a whipping, and, the next day, the crop- 
ping of the second ear and another whipping. 



122 The Negro in Maryland. 

It was at this time that the killing of a slave who should resist 
arrest for any serious offence, was declared not punishable. 

In the Council Records, about 1760, is a description of the 
judiciary of the Province. The Governor and Council formed 
the high Court of Appeals and Errors, and issued pardons 
where such were due. Besides the courts of chancery and 
vice-admiralty, there was the Provincial Court, held twice a 
year at Annapolis. Seven judges sat on this bench, having 
jurisdiction over civil cases of importance and all manner of 
criminal cases. Before them or special commissions, only, 
could white men be sentenced to loss of life or limb. County 
courts were held four times yearly by the justices of the peace 
of each county, to try certain civil matters, and all criminal 
cases not affecting life or limb, and even capital offenses when 
committed by negroes.^ 

By the close of the century, the courts and the jurisdiction 
of the courts had so changed that all persons, slave or free, 
were tried for serious offences before the same tribunal, as had 
been the case three generations before. The forms of punish- 
ment, too, had changed.^ The Governor, in addition to the 
old power of pardon, could commute death sentences to other 
punishment — in the case of slaves, to transportation and sale. 
The courts could give the old penalties, or could sentence free 
males, male servants and apprentices, to labor on the roads for 
not over seven years, and free women, women servants and 
apprentices, to picking oakum, sewing, or other suitable labor, 
for not over the same time. The value of a servant's unex- 
pired term was paid the master, and the county was reim- 
bursed from the sale of the servant, at the expiration of his 
term of labor, for as long a time as was necessary. A slave 



^Council Proc, 1753-1707,323. There were also the magistrates, who 
exercised considerable power in the punishment of slaves anil servants for 
petty offences. Commissions of Over and Terminer and Jail Delivery were 
often issued. We find one commission trying a slave, some twenty years 
earlier, for stealing £2G. The jury actjuitted him. 

^ See 1785, 87 ; 1787, 17 ; 17'Jo, 50; 1793, 57 ; 1795, 82, &c. 



Slaves. 123 

convicted of a capital crime could be sentenced to death or to 
serve on the roads for not over fourteen years. In either case, 
he was bought by the State; but in the latter, as in case of 
transportation, the treasury could be somewhat repaid from 
the sale of him afterward. There M'as added, in 1808, that 
slaves in Baltimore county who might be convicted of man- 
slaughter, could be whipped — or put to labor in the work- 
house, if women, — in place of the other punishments.' In 
1809, was enacted a general law on crimes and punishments. 
It gave such penalties, in general, as we are accustomed to, 
to-day — hanging for murder in the first degree ; limited terms 
of imprisonment for murder in the second degree and man- 
slaughter; indemnification for losses, and imprisonment for 
from three to ten years, for burglary ; indemnification and at 
least a year's term, for stealing to the value of five dollars; 
imprisonment for not less than three months, for being a 
rogue or a vagabond, &c. The only distinction between white 
or black was that a negro or mulatto slave, not sentenced to 
be hung for any crime, under the act, might be punished by 
imprisonment, or, in the discretion of the court, by a whip- 
ping of not over a hundred lashes, and also by banishment, 
by transportation and sale into some foreign country.^ This 
act on crimes, and the opening of the State penitentiary in 
1811, finished and formulated the change which had been 
tailing place in public sentiment. Experience evinces, states 
the old-fashioned preamble to the act, that the surest way of 
preventing the perpetration of crimes and of reforming oJ9Pen- 



1 1789, 44, &c. ; 1808, 113. 

''' 1809, 188. The act gave the penalty of hanging for any person, white, 
free black or slave, convicted of raising insurrection of negroes ; and im- 
prisonment for between six and twenty years, for attempts so to do. The 
keeper of the Penitentiary was empowered to pnnish unruly or idle pris- 
oners by short solitary confinement ; the Board of Inspection could order 
more severe punishment, including whipping. For attempts to escape, the 
Court should give additional labor, confinement, and also corporal punish- 
ment. 



124 The Negro in Maryland. 

ders, is by a mild and justly proportioned scale of punish- 
ments. 

By act of 1817, any colored person \f\\o would, under the 
act of 1809, have been sent to the penitentiary for less than 
one year, was kept in jail, or fined or whipped, or both fined 
and whipped. After the next year, the courts were forbidden 
to send any slaves to the penitentiary ; the punishments for 
them, for crime, being hanging, or not over forty lashes, or 
transportation and sale — not necessarily, now, into some for- 
eign country, but any where except into the District of Colum- 
bia. By a supplement of the following year, these were nar- 
rowed to either hanging or transportation.^ We find the case 
of one negro who was convicted of burglary and, being deemed 
a free man, was put into the penitentiary, of course. It was 
stated afterward that he was a slave ; and so the Governor 
was authorized by the Assembly to order his sale out of 
Maryland, provided that it was first proven to a jury that he 
was a slave. 

Whether these convict slaves sold out of the State found 
their lot any real punishment for their crimes, seems to have 
been a matter of some doubt. Certain it is that the blacks 
themselves attached a very unpleasant significance to the words 
"sold South." We cannot believe that convicts would have 
been purchased for any other purpose than the most rigorous 
field work.^ 

An act of 1833 allowed masters to sell out of INIaryland 
any slaves for a term of years, who were proven, to the sat- 
isfaction of the courts, to be notoriously vicious. These were 
sold for their unexpired term of service only, and the courts 
required j^roof that they had been previously warned duly of 
such punishment as the result of misbehavior. Slaves who 

M817, 72; 1818, 197; 1819, 159. 

* We notice an advertisement in a Baltimore paper of 1851, of valuable 
slaves for sale, for whom f^ood lionies ratlier tlian liigli prices were desired. 
Also, such fi;ood servants would be "exchanged for servants suitable for the 
South, with bad characlerx.'' 



Slaves. 125 

gave much trouble by attempts to run away, might, under the 
same restrictions, be sold in or out of Maryland for their 
unexpired terms. The very next year, the committee of the 
House of Delegates on Colored Population was asked for 
leave to sell thus out of the State a negro girl eighteen years 
old, who was known to have run away several times from a 
previous owner and to have been in jail for other charges also. 
But the petition was denied, with the observation that the 
petitioner must have known the character of his purchase, 
and that the girl's subsequent conduct could not have disap- 
pointed his reasonable expectations. We refrain, continued 
the committee's report, from touching the moral obligations 
of the State not to send an unworthy and dangerous part of 
her population upon another community, uninformed of the 
character of the persons ; and we think, also, that sale out of 
the State for a term of years would, in most cases, although 
the black was given his right to freedom in papers under the 
seal of court, amount to nothing short of slavery for life. 
Two years later, the House of Delegates urged the Seuate to 
pass a bill allowing a certain woman to sell out of Maryland 
a slave who was notoriously vicious and incorrigible, but who 
had not been warned of the possibility of such sale. The 
policy of the law, said the House committee, is to permit the 
removal of slaves known for vicious habits or gross miscon- 
duct; and when these characteristics are shown so as to de- 
stroy all reasonable expectation of reform in conduct, the slave 
may justly be subjected to the punishment of immediate trans- 
portation. But no act seems to have been passed — although 
the slave was said to be so vicious as to be kept in jail, to pro- 
tect his mistress.' In 1845, Governor Pratt called public 
attention to the fact that the only punishments of consequence 
for slaves were either hanging or sale from the State — that is, 
reads the executive message, the substitution for his master 
of another master living without the limits of Maryland, 

1 House Journals, 1834, 544, &c. ; 1836, 381, 569. Acts of 1833, 224. 



126 The Negro in Maryland. 

Avhich would not be considered by the slave or the corauiunity 
as any punishment whatever. . The penitentiary was closed to 
slaves, and transportation would only defeat the ends of jus- 
tice. The attention of the Governor seems to have been espe- 
cially drawn to the matter by the case of a slave who had just 
been sentenced to death by the court of Charles county, for 
insurrection, but who was deemed worthy of clemency by a 
large number of citizens of the county. In accordance with 
the suggestion, the law was so changed that slaves, convicted 
of any of the higher grade of offences, should be punished as 
other persons were. On the expiration of their terms of im- 
prisonment they were sold at auction, to be carried out of the 
State.^ Petty larceny, of which the negroes as a class are 
guilty in large numbers, was not includetl in these offences, it 
is interesting to note. The executive message of 1858, tell- 
ing the Assembly that nearly half of the convicts in the 
]ienitentiary were negroes, suggested that the courts should 
again be given the power of selling out of the State slaves 
convicted of certain felonies. This, it said, would relieve the 
institution of a large class, unprofitable and not to be reformed 
by prison discipline. The law was soon changed so that no 
negroes were sent to the penitentiary. Slaves could be given 
not over forty lashes, or be sold out of the State. 

The many acts which declared that "any person" or "all 
persons" who were guilty of specified offences were liable to 
punishment, were interpreted, as had evidently been intended, 
to include blacks as well as whites — slaves as well as free. The 
Court of Appeals affirmed this judgment, in 1859, when a slave 
woman tried to escape a sentence of a county coiu-t on the plea 
that an act forbidding "any person" to obtain goods under 
false pretences, did not affect slaves." We have noticed, and 
shall notice fiiilher, in the course of our study, the general 



^1845,340. Masters were paid, of course, for slaves transported. 1849, 
124. Code of 1860, 30, 194. 
M4Md., 135. 



Slaves. 127 

laws declaring offences and giving penalties, which concerned 
negroes and slaves peculiarly. It would be tedious and useless 
to give more than a few examples of the many local laws. 
Varying in purport and in the penalties given, they show no 
general public policy, and reflect often, like much special legis- 
tion the world over, the whims and^bad rhetoric of the local 
" member." Yet they help to show us the customs of the 
times. ^ Thus, for selling provisions out of the market-house 
at Fredericktown, by act of 1770, a free man could be fined 
ten shillings, a servant or slave could be given not over fifteen 
lashes. Again, for destroying the gates which a certain resi- 
dent of Dorchester county was allowed to keep across the road, 
in 1846, a free man could be fined a trifling sum, while a slave 
who injured it or left it open wilfully, could be given not over 
ten lashes. Such cases came before a justice, of course. Other 
acts did not let off so easily the master of an offending slave. 
A free person who evaded toll on certain toll roads, was to be 
fined twenty shillings, by act of 1801, while the master of a 
servant or slave who evaded it, was to pay half that sura, 
in addition to the ten lashes which were to be given the 
culprit himself. If a servant or slave bought provisions 
out of market in Chestertown, his owner was liable to pay 
twenty-five shillings, half the fine for a free man. If a citizen 
attempted to avoid toll on the turnpike road from Washington 
to Baltimore, a law^ of 1796 made him liable to fine of two 
dollars, and if his slave offended, he was liable to pay one 
dollar. We find similar provisions on certain toll roads sixty 
years later; in one case, the parent of a minor being made 
equally liable with the master of a steward or slave.^ So, iu 
Baltimore, by law^ of 1843, the parent of a minor or master of 

^When in 1731 the "Charming Molly" appeared off Annapolis with small- 
pox on board, the rule was made that no one should go aboard her and return 
without license. If a freeman offended, he could be sued for one hundred 
pounds ; if a servant or slave, lie was to be given at least thirty -nine stripes 
on the bare back and be sent back at once on board. 

* 1847, 220 ; 18G0, 267. 



128 The Negro in Maryland. 

a slave or apprentice who might steal rides on vehicles, had to 
pay half the ordinary fine. The overseers of roads in Somerset 
county were authorized in 1799 to call out all males for 
certain work on the roads. If a slave or servant were not sent 
when duly called for, or if, when sent, he refused to do reasonable 
work, the master became liable to pay one dollar, the same fine 
as for his own failure to appear. At the very next session, 
this was so changed as to empower the overseers to compel the 
proper service from the slaves instead of fining the masters — 
a system, says the supplement, which had been found to be 
oppressive and injurious.^ It is interesting to note here that 
certain citizens from Baltimore county petitioned the House of 
Delegates in 1824, that slave owners should be made liable 
for theft and misdemeanors committed by their slaves. The 
report of the House committee was adverse. They thought 
it would conflict with the principles of justice to make the 
master responsible for any misdeeds done while the slave was 
not in the discharge of his duties as a servant. This was the 
doctrine, continued the committee, recognized by the law as to 
injuries of a civil nature by servants of any kind, and the same 
should certainly be applied to criminal cases. There were also 
many local laws which allowed the master to save his slave a 
sore back by paying a fine himself. Thus, by act of 1785, a 
free person convicted of wilfully destroying any lamp, sentry- 
box, &c., in Baltimore, was to be fined three pounds, and 
a parent or master was liable equally for damage done by his 
children or his bound servants or apprentices. A slave would be 
given not over thirty-nine lashes, unless the master chose to 
pay the fine or repair the damage. Afterward, according to 
the laws for the enforcement of the ordinances of Baltimore 
C'ity, slaves found guilty by a magistrate of breaking any 
ordinance were to be whipped, unless the fines and costs were 
paid, and magistrates were prohibited from trying the slaves 



»1799, 38; 1800, 5. 



Sfaves. 129 

until the masters had been duly notified/ So the authorities 
of Annapolis and Frederick were allowed to punish by whip- 
ping those slaves who might disregard the town ordinances, 
unless the masters redeemed them. In 1792, the House 
passed a bill to fine free men who might beat the waters of the 
Patuxent at certain spawning seasons, and to whip slaves 
duly convicted of the same, unless the master would pay half 
the ordinary fine. The Senate amended so that no slave should 
be punished if he acted by his employer's order, but that the 
employer should, in that case, pay the full fine. A somewhat 
similar provision was made in 1800, to protect fish in the 
Great Choptank, but we notice that forty years later the law 
gave a whipping without any exception. Early in the century, 
three acts were passed at intervals of a few years each, to pre- 
vent the erection of seines and weirs in three rivers in different 
counties. One act, to prevent obstructions to navigation, fixed 
a penalty of twenty-five dollars for free men, and not over 
twenty lashes for slaves, acting without their master's direc- 
tions, provided always that the slave might be redeemed by 
anyone who would pay twenty-five dollars. Free man or slave, 
the case was tried before a magistrate. The second act — to 
prevent certain obstructions to the movement of fish — fixed a 
penalty of one hundred dollars for free men, and of not over 
thirty-nine lashes for slaves, provided that anyone might 
redeem a slave by payment of fifty dollars, and that a slave 
who had acted by order of his master should not be punished, 
but that the master, in such a case, should pay a hundred 
dollars. The third act — also to protect fish — gave a penalty 
of twenty dollars for a free man, and not over thirty-nine 
lashes for a slave, unless some one redeemed him by payment 
of thirty dollars. If the master ordered the slave to commit 
the offence, he was liable to the twenty dollars. Under this 



' An exception seems to have been made in Baltimore, in that a slave 
convicted before the Criminal Court of cruelty to animals might be given a 
good whipping, if the court saw fit. 

9 



130 The Negro in Maryland. 

act, as under the preceding one, the free man would be tried 
before the county court, the slave by a single magistrate. 
Of these three acts, the first remained in force in 1860 
unchanged ; the penalties of the second had been changed to a 
smaller fine and fewer lashes ; the third had been done away, 
the law forbidding simply any obstructions to be erected by 
any person under penalty of fine of not over fifty dollars. In 
all cases, of free man or slave, the trial was before a justice.^ 

To make any sweeping assertions as to the rigor or mildness 
with which this criminal code was enforced against the blacks, 
would be hazardous. Even if we had the records of all the 
courts, the few words of the docket entries would tell neither 
the circumstances of a case nor the fitness of a penalty. Yet 
we may hope to throw some light on the matter, to say the 
least. 

Death sentences were referred, we remember, to the Gov- 
ernor and Council ; so the Council records show us somewhat 
how the greatest oifences were dealt with.^ In the case of one 
negro woman sentenced to death in 1738, for attempting to 
poison her master, the Council recommended the warrant for 
execution. In the same year, in an adjoining county, a negro 
was found guilty of felony deserving death, but the reports 
sent the Council were not satisfactory, evidently, for the exe- 
cution was suspended until the Attorney-General could thor- 
oughly consider the indictment and the process in the case. 
Some weeks later, that officer reported that the proceedings 
were regular, and so the negro was executed — it appearing to 
the Council that he was " a notorious offender." Soon after 



' 1801, 70 ; 1805, 31 ; 1808, 78 ; Code of 1860. 

*The Council records seem to be quite complete during the interesting 
period from 1738-1770, when, as we have seen, the criminal code became 
most rigorous. 

We note tliat in 1088, on the happy birth of the young Prince, tlie 
Council pardoned several negroes wlio had been lately condemned to death, 
and returned them to their masters, on payment of costs. (Council Book 
B., Oct. IG, 1688.) 



Slaves. 131 

this, a court of Oyer and Terminer and jail delivery, of three 
men, commissioned for Anne Arundel county, reported that 
they had passed sentence of death on a slave, Isaac, for bur- 
glary and robbery, on another slave for murder, and on a 
white man who had committed the burglary with Isaac. As 
it appeared to the Council that Isaac had borne " a good char- 
acter and was a real object of compassion," he was recommen- 
ded to the mercy of the Governor ; but as the crime of the 
other slave was murder, and as the white man was a notorious 
oifender, the Council advised that they be executed ; and the 
Governor acted accordingly. On the receipt of the record 
from St. Mary's court of the conviction of two slaves for 
conspiring to poison the overseer, clerk and gardener of their 
master, warrants for execution were ordered. So, in the next 
year, two slaves of Anne Arundel were executed, one for bur- 
glary, the other for rape on a white woman ; and the body of 
the second, who had been a notorious offender, was hung in 
chains at some distance from the gallows. In 1742, seven 
negroes condemned by the Provincial Court, " on clear evi- 
dence," of the murder of their master, were executed. The 
court of Charles county passed sentence of death on two 
negroes for felony, but also recommended that the men were 
objects of mercy. In this the Council agreed, as the men had 
never before been charged with any felony, and the Governor 
issued pardon. In the next year, two negroes murdered an 
Indian, and they were hung in chains ; and two white men 
were hung for burglary and murder; while a white boy and a 
young mulatto slave, condemned for stealing, were pardoned 
as objects of mercy. In 1 747, two negroes convicted of horse 
stealing were pardoned; while another of an adjoining county, 
was executed for the same offence, as he bore " a very ill 
character ; " and a servant was executed for the murder of a 
mulatto slave. In 1754, a slave and a white man were sen- 
tenced to death for storebreaking and stealing, but were par- 
doned by the Governor at the request of several gentlemen, as 
they were both very young, and had never been convicted for 



132 The Negro in Maryland. 

offences before. Negroes Pompey, Sambo and Jack were con- 
demned to death in Anne Arundel for entering a storehouse 
and stealing fifty pounds of bacon and ten gallons of rum. As 
Sambo was young, and might, in the opinion of the Council, 
have been influenced by his father Pompey, he and Jack were 
pardoned, but Pompey was hung. And a negro who mur- 
dered his overseer was hung in chains as near as possible to 
the scene of the murder. When, in 1761, the conviction of 
two negroes was sent to the Council without proper informa- 
tion, a letter was sent to the clerk of the coimty court, thus : 
" The Governor and Council upon hearing read the copy of 
the conviction of negro Tom for a felony and also of negro 
Nace for a felony in breaking open the meat-house of Cathe- 
rine Price of your county, sent up by you without any Letter 
or Report from the Justices of the county who were present at 
the Tryals, how the circumstances appeared to them, you are 
therefore desired to enquire of them in Relation to the same, 
and transmit their answer to me by the first opportunity, in 
order to lay it before the Council at their next meeting." At 
their next meeting was read the report of the justices and a 
petition from several of them and a clergyman, recommending 
the offenders as objects of mercy. They were accordingly 
pardoned. A negress, " Bett Pone," convicted of an attempt 
to poison her overseer, was also recommended to the mercy of 
the Governor by the justices, and was accordingly pardoned. 
When three negroes were sentenced for attempt to poison, in 
Calvert county, in 1764, the county clerk evidently neglected 
to send the full particulars to the Council, for the papers were 
returned with orders that he procure from the justices a report 
of the behavior of the culprits. Their owners were also asked 
if they chose to transport the negroes from tlie Province; but 
they requested the execution of the sentence. There were at 
that time a number of cases of poisoning or attempts to poison. 
One slave murdered the wife and child of his master. An- 
other slave was sentenced, in Prince George's county, for pois- 
oning a fellow-slave ; but a reprieve was issued, in answer to 



Slaves. 133 

a petition from his master, on the condition that he should not 
stay in the county after five days from that date. In several 
cases, negroes were bound over to good behavior — instead of 
being hung.^ In 1766, a negro was condemned for attempting 
to poison his master ; convicted by confession and by testimony 
of a slave who was privy to his preparing a "Dose composed 
of Ground Poppies and other Ingredients which he supposed 
Poisonous." A young negress, slave of a citizen of Charles 
county, was convicted in 1766, of setting fire to a tobacco house, 
from which the dwelling house of her master was consumed. 
On asking information, the Council learned that the girl in the 
absence of her master, drew some cider and left the spigot 
open, for which her mistress threatened to tell her master and 
have her whipped. Several times the girl asked forgiveness 
of her mistress and begged that the fault might be concealed 
from her master. Then, in despair, she set fire to a tobacco 
house, and the dwelling house and offices were wholly con- 
sumed. After the trial, the mistress went to the house of one 
of the justices and begged him to apply to the Governor for 
pardon, saying that if the girl were executed, she never could 
forgive herseli' for obstinately persisting in her threats of 
punishment ; that she knew not but that the girl might 
have been intoxicated with the liquor she drew, and that she 
had before behaved herself " as well as negroes in common 
do." The master expressed himself as willing to have the girl 
pardoned. One of the justices testified to the fact that the 
court had inquired into the girl's character, that she seemed 
but little sensible of her situation at the trial, and that her 
youth and her confession of the crime appeared to be the only 
circumstances in her favor. But the attention of the Council 
was called, also, to the fact that two other cases of burning of 



^ In 1762, a negro was condemned for a felony, in Charles county court ; 
but a reprieve for a month was issued by the Governor, and the sheriff was 
ordered to set the fellow free and acquaint him that unless he behaved, he 
would be called to his former sentence. 



134 The Negro in Maryland. 

tobacco houses had occurred in the same county during the 
preceding winter. The Council evidently hesitated, considera- 
tion of the case was put ofiT for some days, and then the war- 
rant for execution was issued. A slave was convicted in St. 
Mary's county, the same year, of breaking into his master's 
store. The master asked for his pardon, stating that the slave 
had himself confessed, and had not before oifended ; a 
friend seconded the request, adding that the negro was a very 
valuable slave; and in addition, one of the magistrates wrote : 
" I am not fond of having rogues escape punishment, but on 
the contrary should rather choose they should suifer as examples 
to others, particularly negroes, among w^hom villainy and 
roguery is but too common, yet on this occasion I must hope 
your Excellency wall grant what is desired." So, the follow- 
ing year, the master of a negro convicted of breaking open 
a building, asked for his pardon, as the black was valuable 
and had had a tolerably good character ; while the owner of 
the building wrote — the master having told him that his 
consent, as the person injured, would be required — that 
"if your Excellency is inclinable to extend your mercy unto 
the poor wretch, I humbly submit." Again, a year later, a 
petition of twenty-nine names was presented for the pardon of 
a negro sentenced for burglary, stating that the crime was 
committed through over-persuasion, youth and inexperience; 
that the master could not purchase so serviceable a slave, and 
notwithstanding the high value the court was pleased to put 
on him, would be a great sufferer at that time if the negro 
must suffer death ; and that the petitioners would not fear for 
their property should the boy be pardoned — and again, a 
pardon was granted. 

In 1770, three negroes were condemned for murder in 
Prince George's county, one as having given the blow and the 
other two as abettors ; and the court stated that it seemed to 
be the opinion of many gentlemen of the county, as well as of 
the court, that it would be very pro})er to execute the law in 
its full rigor. Warrants were so issued, save that the two 



Slaves. 135 

abettors were spared the part of the sentence which directed 
that the right hand be cut off before execution. This is the 
only case we find in the Council Records in which the law for 
the punishment of slaves for the highest crimes seems to have 
been executed to the letter.^ During this period many culprits, 
white and black alike, met with no clemency. One of the 
planters, for instance, who was said indeed to be no good char- 
acter, was executed for breaking and entering a store house 
attached to an inn, and stealing therefrom '' two Pair of 
women's leather Pumps " of the value of fifteen shillings 
current money. The Governor was empowered, a few years 
later, to commute death sentences to other penalties. We find 
mention of thirteen negroes sentenced to death between 1786 
and 1 801 . Of these, one slave was hung for rape ; five, of whom 
at least three were slaves, were transported for rape, arson and 
other felonies; two slaves convicted of murder were put to 
work on the roads for fifty years, and two others for twenty 
years for other felonies ; and the death sentences of three slaves 
were commuted without specified conditions.^ 

•Anne Arundel county had a large slave population. We 
find five cases of slaves before the county court between 1760 
and 176-4 — one for assault and rape on a woman, evidently a 
white; three for breaking and stealing; and one for firing a 
building. All threw themselves, as the old phrase went, on 
God and their country, that is were tried by jury, and all 
chanced to be acquitted and discharged. From 1768 to 1771 
two negroes were tried. One, evidently a free negro, was 
found guilty of manslaughter for killing a negro, and was 
branded in the hand. The other, a slave, found guilty by a 
jury of stealing a coat valued at one hundred pounds of 



^Act of 1751, ch. 14. By this, the criminal was to have his right hand 
cut off before execution, and his body quartered and exposed afterward. 
From this special mention of the execution of the law in its full rigor, we 
presume that slaves were ordinarily executed as others were. 

*See Votes and Proceedings, and Resolutions of the Assemblies. 



136 The Negro in Maryland. 

tobacco, was sentenced to be hanged. About the same time, 
two white laborers, one of whom had stolen a sheep worth 
eighty pounds of tobacco, and the other various goods to the 
value of two hundred and eighty pounds, were sentenced to 
return those things and make four-fold restitution, and to 
stand in the pillory for five minutes, and to have twenty-five 
lashes on the bare back at the public whipping post. Of 
eighty presentments at two terms in 1790, several were for 
dealing with negroes, and in one case, a free black paid thirty 
shillings for an assault, but there were no slaves ; of thirty-nine 
at one term in 1794, one was a white for an assault on a negro 
and another was a slave woman for an assault, but both failed 
to appear ; of fifty-three, four years later, one seems to have 
been the same woman, one was a negro presented for murder, 
and there was one slave, who was referred to a single magis- 
trate. Among a multitude of civil suits and of bastardy cases, 
with an occasional assault or other criminal case, it is here and 
there only that we find a slave brought before the county 
courts. 

Among the papers belonging to the city of Annapolis are 
several books of proceedings of the mayor's court, which had 
apparently much the same jurisdiction as single magistrates 
had in the counties, and which dispensed justice to all persons 
who disregarded the ordinances of that little city. The court 
consisted of the mayor, recorder and several aldermen, but the 
mayor seems to have been absent often. The cases before the 
court were not, it must be confessed, of a very serious nature. 
One citizen who allowed his chimney to get on fire, was fined 
forty shillings ; another, who left broken bottles before his 
door, paid five shillings on submission, Nvithout trial. But 
when in 1720 a man had the temerity to utter four separate 
oaths, one after the other, he was put in the stocks for three 
hours, and fined for the first oath two shillings and sixpence, 
and five shillings for each of the others. At the January term 
of 1790, there were several cases of assault, and one white man 
was fined seven shillings sixpence and fees for assaulting 



Slaves. 137 

another, and a fellow culprit, five shillings and fees for assault- 
ing a negro. The* most common offence under the city ordi- 
nances seems to have been the entertainment of, and sale of 
liquor to, apprentices, indentured servants and slaves. One 
person who ventured to sell a bottle of rum to a young Dutch- 
man in the Governor's service, had to pay five shillings ; and 
another, who sold a pint of liquor to a negro of Charles 
Carroll, Esq., without the required permission in writing from 
the master, atoned by forty shillings. This sum was the cus- 
tomary fine for thus selling without leave, or for keeping a 
disorderly house. We find one item of fines due in 1754, from 
a woman, to wit, to entertaining six slaves, two hundred pounds 
of tobacco each, or a total of five pounds sterling. At a session 
in 1765, the grand jury found indictments for entertaining 
and selling liquor to servants and slaves,tothenumber of sixty- 
five against one person, of forty-two each against two others, 
and some forty and more beside. The first mention of negro 
culprits is at a session of 1783, when of twenty presentments, 
five were slaves. One, for suffering hogs to go at large, does 
not appear to have been brought to trial. Two of them, 
women, appeared and confessed to carrying fire through the 
street, whereupon one was excused on payment of costs, and 
the other — probably because she had neither money nor indul- 
gent master — received the only corporal punishment of which 
we find mention in these dockets, to wit, one lash on the bare 
back. She was handed over to the sheriff, who soon informed 
the court he had executed the judgment. The two others were 
men, who paid the court each ten shillings and costs for gal- 
loping on horseback through the streets. The negro boys seem 
to have taken great delight in fast driving and riding. Sev- 
eral years later, a free black accused of the same offence, plead 
not guilty, but was convicted by jury and paid the customary 
fines. One grand jury of this little court desired to be no 
respecter of persons, for they presented in 1813, for allowing 
his sleigh to be driven at improper speed, no less a personage 
than Charles Carroll of Carrollton ; but the case was dismissed 



138 The Negro in Maryland. 

on motion of the prosecutor. Another citizen was presented, 
as his slave had over-driven or overworked a horse. Of nine- 
teen presentments in 1785 one was a black; of twenty-three 
in 1789 two were blacks, but the cases were not brought up 
till the following year evidently. All three were accused of 
forcing horses ; one case was declared ojff, and fines were paid 
in the others. Two of these were slaves. Of over two hun- 
dred cases mentioned between 1790 and 1805, twelve were of 
blacks. Of tM'O, of free blacks, accused of keeping a disorderly 
house and of letting hogs go astray, we find no further notice. 
That of a slave for assaulting a man — a white apparently 
— was quashed. A free black paid ten shillings and costs for 
riding in a cart unlawfully, and the case of a slave accused of 
the same oifence was declared off by the court. Two free 
blacks and two slaves were fined for forcing horses, while the 
indictments against three slaves for the same offence were 
quashed. In 1812, there is the mere mention of a negro ac- 
cused of an assault. The next year, a certain white man was 
fined eight dollars for assaulting another, and was also found 
guilty by a jury of assault on a negro, and w^as fined one cent 
therefor. There is no mention of a case against a negro in the 
.dockets from 1813 to 1818.' 

With the abolition of capital punishment except in extreme 
cases, with the decay of the pillory and the stocks, and with 
the building of the penitentiary, we find the slaves convicted 
of serious offences in the circuit courts, ordinarily imprisoned 
or sold out of the State, and those convicted of minor offences, 
before these courts or a magistrate, receiving a whipping. 
Thus in Baltimore, in 1858, a white man was fined three dol- 
lars and thirty-three cents, and committed in default, by a 
justice, for pitching cents on Sunday; and a slave brought 
before the same justice for the same offence, was given fifteen 
lashes. Another slave, for throwing a brick, contrary to ordi- 



' These docket books seem to cover very largely, if not wholly, the work 
of tlie mavor'H court for the time. 



Slaves. 139 

nance of the city, got the same punishment ; and another 
atoued by twenty lashes for a threat to shoot a colored lad. 
One slave who pleaded guilty to stealing a large quantity of 
iron, was given ten lashes, by request of his master, instead of 
being sold South. The case of two slaves of Prince George's 
county, charged with robbery, was dropped on condition that 
they be sold South. For more serious offences, — a slave boy 
was given ten years in the penitentiary for setting fire to a 
stable ; while a young slave girl who tried twice to set fire to 
her employer's stable, in order, as she confessed, to see the fire 
engines come up, was released by order of the grand jury of 
Baltimore criminal court, as not being bright. A slave con- 
victed in Talbot county court, in 1851, of a violent assault 
with a knife on a white man, was given five years in the peni- 
tentiary. A young slave girl presented in Caroline county, in 
1855, for causing the death of her mistress by putting arsenic 
in her coffee, and found guilty of murder in the second degree, 
was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment. And a slave 
of Queen i^nne's county was given nearly the same time, for 
the murder, in the second degree, of a white raan.^ 



We see that the letter of the law alone is not sufficient tes- 
timony to the customary administration of justice. But we 

^The local paper adds that a mob was seen about the jail, and that the 
negro was at once taken to the penitentiary. 

That part of the old act of 1723 (ch. 15) which allowed the cropping of 
the ear of a " negro or other slave," convicted before a magistrate of strik- 
ing a white person or of certain other offences, was formally done away in 
1821 (ch. 240). Whipping, limited to thirty-nine lashes, was substituted. 
Mies' Register for September, 1826, states that a white man had recently 
undertaken to chastise a black woman who was not his slave, and, when 
she resisted and whipped him, had had her arrested under the old law 
which provided cropping of the ear of a black who should make defence 
against the assault of a white. But the magistrate dismissed the case. 
" Several severe and very uncouth laws," added the report, "yet remain on 



140 The Negro in Maryland. 

must remember that the court in ^vhich the slave was most 
liable to meet injustice was that of the local magistrate, who 
might be called away from business or pleasure, when drunk 
or sober, to give sentence within a few hours perhaps of the 
commission of the oflPence, while the injured neighbors were 
still angry. Of these courts there are no records ; nor are 
there of those countless courts to which slaves were liable for 
their every-day conduct — the master or the overseer. Slavery 
used often to be spoken of by those who favored it, as a patri- 
archal institution, under which the slaves were subject to the 
master's judgment and guidance, somewhat as were his chil- 
dren. There is every reason to believe that the great majority 
of slaves in Maryland were properly and kindly treated. But 
as some parents seem to be devoid of that affection which is 
so common, and which is called natural, so not even the usual 
kindly feeling of men and their natural disinclination to injure 
their own property, were sufficient to keep masters occasion- 
ally from maltreating their slaves. 

If the white servant was unjustly or abusively treated by 
anyone, he could enter complaint before the authorities, like 
any of the colonists. And he could testify in any case as 
freely, of course, as if he were free. In the records of the 



our statute books in full force, being unrepealed, but unenforced, because of 
the ameliorated condition of society, and the changes that have taken place 
in public opinion." The writer evidently did not know that the law had 
been changed — we are by no means sure that the magistrate did ! 

In 1829 was repealed that part of an act of 1793 which allowed the sale 
at auction, for terms of service, of persons remaining in prison for a month, 
for non-payment of fines, unable to give recognizance. (1793, 57 ; 1829, 38.) 

We notice the sale, as servants, of a white woman and her bastard mu- 
latto child, in 1790; and of white Avomen for having colored children, in 
1793 and 1794. The {)unishment of such bastard children, for the sins of 
their parents, was abolished in 1796. (1796, 67.) 

When the act for the punishment of criminals was before the House, 
in 1793, a motion to strike out the clause allowing female prisoners to be 
given not over fifteen strij)es, for misbehavior, was carried by vote of 40 to 
10. Males could i)e given thirty-nine stripes. 



Slaves. 141 

Provincial Court for 1658, for instance, there is mention of 
two such complaints. But the Council, a half century later, 
did not allow a servant, we remember, to have his master put 
under bonds to keep the peace, saying that such a custom 
would be inconvenient. 

In 1692, the attention of the Assembly was called to the 
fact that a certain resident had " most barbarously " cut off 
the ears of a "mulatto girl, a servant for a long terra of years. 
A special act thereupon manumitted the girl, as a recompense 
for the injuries. And there was further enacted that the 
county court should thereafter set free at once any slave who 
should be dismembered or cauterized by the master, or by the 
overseer with the master's consent. And any master or over- 
seer who should deny to any English servant or slave suffi- 
cient meat, drink, lodging and clothing, or should unreason- 
ably burden them with overwork, or refuse to them necessary 
rest and sleep, should be fined for a first or second offence, in 
the judgment of the court ; and on a third offence, the servant 
or slave should be freed. The fines were soon afterwards 
limited to not over one thousand pounds of tobacco, but there 
was added that servants and slaves should not be excessively 
beaten or abused. But the general act of 1715, which super- 
seded earlier acts on servants and slaves, provided the fine of 
a thousand pounds of tobacco, and loss of the servant for a 
third offence, against any master, or overseer acting by the 
master's orders, who should fail to provide sufficient food, 
clothing and lodging for, or should unreasonably burden or 
abuse or keep from proper rest, or give more than ten lashes 
for any one offence to, "any servant whatsoever." If a master 
thought his servant deserved more punishment, he could take 
him before a maoistrate, who could order thirtv-nine lashes. 
This evidently applied to servants only.^ But before and 



' Acts of 1692, 1699, 1704, 1715, 44, on Servants and Slaves. 
In some sections of the act of 1715, slaves only are mentioned ; in others, 
both servants and slaves are expressly mentioned ; other sections, still, 



142 The Negro in Maryland. 

after these acts — whether or not the act of 1715 applied to 
slaves as well as servants — very cruel masters were liable to 
be brought before the courts. 

We find notice of an inquest held by the court of Kent 
county in 1652, over the death of a Scotchman, a servant, 
with the verdictof the jury that his death was caused by fever, 
and that the stripes given him by his master, not long before 
his death, were " not material." Some six years later, a woman 
was tried in the Provincial Court for causing the death of her 
servant, and was found not guilty. A planter of some note 
was brought before the Provincial Court, about the same time, 
for causing the death of a slave who died under his correction. 
This case was tried at length, the accused being held over 
from one court to the next in the sum of one hundred thou- 
sand pounds of tobacco. The jury gave a verdict of ignoramus, 
the evidence not being found sufficient to convict.^ If we 
turn to the latter days of slavery, we find that a resident of 
Talbot county, complained of to the grand jury by his neigh- 
bors, was fined a hundred dollars and heavy costs, for cruelty 
to a slave. When another report of cruelty came to another 



mention, and apply evidently to, servants only. Herty's Digest of 1799 
gives this section in question as applying to servants by indenture or other- 
wise. (Herty, 476.) By the Code of 1860, a master who did not provide 
his slave sufficient food, lodging and clothing, or who unreasonably over- 
worked him or kept him from necessary rest, or excessively beat or abused 
him, was liable to a fine of twenty dollars for the first and second ofi'ences, 
and to the loss of the slave for the third. After 1793, the penalty for ma- 
liciously maiming or dismembering any one was hard labor for years, at least. 
> See Hanson's Old Kent, 22, 223. Provincial Court Records, 1658-1662, 
146, 161, 493. In the case of the planter we read, on the one hand, how 
the negro was put in chains by order of his mistress for some misdemeanor; 
how he refused then to work, and pretended to be in a fit ; how he was 
whipped with a little switch, had hot lard poured down his back, and then, 
when he got up, was tied to a ladder. Still being stubborn, he was left 
tied ; a cold wind arose, and he soon died. On the other hand, the over- 
seer testified that tlie negro would not do even as much work as to get his 
own food, and had run away and lived by stealing, and was withal " an 
ugly, yelling, beast-like brute." 



Slaves. 143 

grand jury of the same county, an examination showed that 
the master, who had recently moved there, had been sold a 
number of troublesome negroes, that he had suspected one of 
setting fire to his barn, and had handled them rather roughly, 
attaching to one of them a ball and chain. The jury de- 
cided after careful consideration that there was no ground 
for prosecution. In 1843, there was some little excitement in 
Baltimore county over the case of a slave boy who was found 
hung after he had been whipped by his master. The coroner's 
jury found it to be a case of suicide; and the master recovered 
in a libel suit, by jury trial in the county court, the sum of 
one hundred dollars from one of the prominent Baltimore 
papers which had mentioned the matter, at first, with some 
slight suspicion as to the circumstances. In 1847, the atten- 
tion of the Criminal Court in Baltimore was called to a negro 
boy who was held as an apprentice by one of the superin- 
tendents of chimneys there. He wore a strong iron collar 
riveted about his neck, which, the master said, had been put 
on some six months before, as the boy had run away. The 
boy himself did not complain of any bad treatment other than 
this collar. The court examined the indentures of apprentice- 
ship, and found them wholly invalid, and so ordered the boy's 
discharge from servitude. Later, in the same court, a man 
was fined ten dollars and costs, amounting to nearly twenty 
dollars, for an excessive assault on a slave. Again, a colored 
chimney sweep, aged only ten, was thought by the coroner's 
jury to have died from exposure. The sweep-master was then 
brought before a justice and held over to answer the grand 
jury in the sum of five hundred dollars. He was tried a month 
later and found not guilty.' But there were other cases of 
cruelty than of white to black. In Howard county, in 1858, a 
man was fined one hundred dollars and costs, and given a keen 
rebuke besides, for abusing an apprentice boy. A colored 

^ Baltimore Stm, Feb. 21st, 1845; Oct. 20th, 1847; Oct. 29th, 1853; Feb. 
10th, 1858; Sept. 25th, 1860. 



144 The Negro in Maryland. 

woman of Baltimore was convicted of manslaughter in 1858, 
in causing the death of her niece, a colored girl, and was given 
imprisonment for over nine years — the full extent of the law. 
A white man of Baltimore was put in jail for three months 
and fined in all over seventy dollars, for severely whipping 
his daughter. We find here and there in the court records, 
those expressions of the brutal side of human nature which are 
to be seen the world over. But the presence of a servile class, 
of a race deemed far infericn* to the whites, added temptations 
t(j the man who might be quick m temper, drunken in habit, 
or ci-uel in nature. And it was often impossible — however tlie 
best elements in the community may have desired it — to have 
cruelty punished with deserving rigor.^ 



^ Leave was given in the House of Delegates, in 1818, to bring in a bill on 
assaults and batteries committed on slaves. All we know of it is that it was 
to apply to certain counties only, that it was reported by a committee, and 
that the matter then ended by its being referred back to the committee with 
instructions for a bill for the summary punishment of slaves using provoking 
and insolent language. (House Journal, 13, 36.) 

Note. — As personal property, slaves were subject to sale at their masters' 
will. Many masters, as is well known, avoided any sale of their servants, 
especially faithful ones. In some cases — in the distribution of estates most 
likely — there was attached to the sale the condition that they siiould not 
be taken from the State. Thus we find in the Eastern Shore Whig, 1S30, 
the notice of a trustee's sale of negroes, not to be sold to persons out of 
Maryland, or to those who would sell them out Again, in the Baltimore 
Sun, 1858, a negro is advertised, sound, sold for no fault, and not to be taken 
out of the State. A certain resident of Baltimore had bought a girl for a 
term of j'ears, on condition that she sliould not be sold away ; but finding her 
vicious and of troublesome habits, lie applied to tiie court, and got leave to 
sell her in or out of the State. A firm of slave dealers on the Eastern Shore 
advertised in the Easton Gazette, in 1845, under a large heading, Casli ! Casii I 
" We have returned from tlie South, and are again in the market with a 
plentiful supply of the needful, which we will exchange for every descrip- 
tion of negroes," but those who did not care to sell servants out of tlie State 
were assured that their wishes would be followed. Tiie same firm offered 
for sale a woman, slave for a term of years, and two young diildren, on con- 
dition that they be not .separated. 

Of goods and chattels to be sold at shcrifl's' or constables' sales, notice 
was to be given for ten days previous to sale, by posters in at least three 



Slaves. 145 

public places, except for slaves, who, like lands and tenements, were to be 
posted for twenty days and published in a newspaper. (1816, 129, &c.) 

A wife's property was not responsible for her husband's debts, unless 
acquired from him in prejudice of creditors. The control and management 
of slaves owned by a wife were in the husband, and at the death of the wife, 
the slaves and any increase born up to her death, went to her children, 
subject to the use of the husband during his life, without liability to his 
creditors. The increase of the slaves born during the survivorship of the 
husband were his in absolute right. If the wife died without leaving chil- 
dren or their descendants, the slaves went to the husband. (1842, 293. 
17 Md., 352.) 

Slaves had frequently to be sold or separated in the settlement of estates. 
The Provincial Court, in 1749, had decided that the issue of slaves born 
during the life of one who held the slaves for life only, passed with the 
slaves to the remainderman ; but the Court of Appeals, three years after, 
held that the legatee for life was entitled to the increase born during the 
continuance of the life estate. This was on the principle that the bequest 
for life of the use of a female slave vested in the tenant for life a property 
in the issue born, as " a part of the use." Thus, in the ease of an ante- 
nuptial contract by which the husband was to be entitled, on the death of 
the wife, to whatever profit or issue accrued to the wife's property during 
her married life, the Court of Appeals held that the slaves owned by the 
woman at marriage went to her representatives, but the children of the 
negroes, born during that time, belonged to the surviving husband, being 
" issues and profits." (1 H. & McH., 109 ; 7 H. & J., 194 ; 10 G. & J., 299 ; 
10 Md., 251.) But a case which came before the Chancellor in 1850, in 
which land and negroes and other property were left in trust, the " income " 
to be applied to a certain person during life, was held to be different, and 
the increase of the negroes was deemed the property of the person for 
whom the estate was held in trust. " To separate the i.ssue from the 
mother," added the Chancellor, " involves the necessity of determining at 
what age this may be done. The infant cannot be torn from its mother. . . . 
No one would buy, and humanity would cry out against it." Appeal was 
taken on this decision, the Court of Appeals was divided, and so it stood 
confirmed. (4 Md., 532). The general principle in such cases was as before 
stated. (4Md. Chan., 162.) 

In 1886, also, the Court of Appeals,— reversing a decree of the Court of 
Chancery, — decided that the issue of a mortgaged slave born after the title 
of the mortgagee had become absolute, although the slaves were in the pos- 
session of the mortgagor, was liable for the payment of the debt as well as 
the parent, and might be sold, in the process of law, with the parents. The 
mortgagee being legal owner of the parent must also own the offspring born 
during his title, subject to the equitable right of the mortgagor to redeem. 
" We are happy to find," said the Court, " that in this instance, the law of 

10 



146 The Negro in Maryland. 

the land and the law of nature .... are in perfect harmony." (8 G. & 
J., 24.) 

No slaves, the subjects of an action of replevin, could be sold during the 
action. The House of Delegates urged on the Senate the passage of the 
prohibition, as slaves had been replevied from their owners and sold at 
once out of the State. (1833, 274.) There is mention of a bill reported to 
the House in 1856, to prevent the sale of slaves at the suit of creditors, or 
for payment of the owner's debts. 

It i(» nut uninteresting to note that at the Assembly of 1671, a bill for the 
"Preservation of Orphans' Estates" was carefully considered. Objection 
was made to the provision that the guardian should deliver to the ward, on 
bec-oming of age, negroes of like ages and ability, "because no man can be 
sure iiereafter to purchase any negroes," and guardians might also take or 
Bell the negntes of the estate to their own use. So it was enacted that no 
negroes should be disposed of in any way as long as there were other goods 
of the estate suHicient to satisfy all just debts; but all slaves should be 
appraised to the guardians or administrators and employed to their benefit, 
and the like number and of like ability returned to the wards out of the 
increase ; any deficit to be made good in money or tobacco, under the 
appraisement of the county courts. And if the guardians did not wish to 
attfpt the slaves on these terms, the courts should so let them out as to best 
prvKTve them and their increase, that the wards might have the original 
stock made good to them " in number, value and ability." (Md. Arch., II, 
317, \.c.) The act of 1729 (eh. 24), which was in force apparently to 1798, 
provided that no slaves should be sold by an executor or administrator, or 
n-MTved for iiis own use for |iayment of any private debt; nor should slaves 
be taken in execution for debt so long as there were other goods. We shall 
»t.-v, in the chapter on manumission, the protection that was given at law to 
slnveN ninnumitted. 

\n act of 1662 declared as taxables, all male children born in the Prov- 
in<f, at Kixleen years of age ; all male servants imported, at or before ten ; 
and all slaves, male and female, at ten years. But the age was soon fixed 
at hixteon years and upwards for all males of the Province, all male ser- 
yants ini|K)rted, and all slaves whatsoever. After 1715, there were excepted 
all M?ltli-«l clergymen of the Church of England, all poor living at public 
nmX, and all Nbives too old or infirm for labor. In 1725, free negro women, 
and female nmlattoes born of while women, were added. (Md. Arch., I, 
449: II, .W». 1715, 15. 1725,4.) 

All hlave»* and wrvantj*, the young as well as tlie aged, had been taxed 
fur the " muhter master general's" fees, under the act of 1662; but as this 
wa* found to Ik* a " real grievance," there was enaeted, four years later, that 
no iilaven wliiitever, nur any person under sixteen or over sixty or impotent, 
•liuulil Ih' tnxiiiile for the fee». 

Tax«-H on nlavw. were afterward regulated by law according to ages. At 
the i-n.i of i|,e luKt century, and as late as 1812, male slaves who were 



Slaves. 



147 



tradesmen were to be valued according to their trade and proficiency. 
(1782, 4; 1812, 191.) In 1852, the general valuation on slaves was — 



Males : 



f -12 years... $ 75.00 
12-21 " ... 250.00 
21-45 " ... 400.00 
45-60 " ... 160.00 



Females : 



-12 years... $ 50.00 
12-21 " ... 200.00 
21-40 " ... 300.00 
40-60 " ... 100.00 



Those who were incapable from age or infirmity were exempt from taxa- 
tion. (1852, 337.) 

We may add, that we have looked with some interest, to see if the early 
legislation of Barbadoes may have influenced the slave code in Maryland. 
Apparently, it did not. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Manumission. 

l>\)r u hundred years and mure after the settlement of Mary- 
land, tliere were no regulations by law for the manumission of 
slaves. There was simply the declaration that baptism did 
ruit give freedom. Some masters freed their slaves, and some 
slaves |>etitioned the courts for freedom ; but such cases were 
f«'W. The forms and solemnities by which freedom was vested 
in the negro depended, probably, on the legal ideas of the 
rn.Tster or of the local magistrate, as was the case in some 
Northern States always, where the number of slaves remained 
insignificant. Claims for freedom were tried, as far as we 
know, in the Provincial Court or the General Court only, for 
many years. Thus, in 1693, the Provincial Court received 
the jM-tition for freedom of a negro woman who had been born 
in New England and brongiit to Maryland, as she claimed, as 
u servant. But the jury found her a slave, and such she 
remained.' In 1747 a citizen of Queen Anne's county raanu- 
nnttenl several slaves by his will and gave also to them and, 
their heirs a tract of land, A hundred years after, the heirs 
sold a portion of this land, but doubts were expressed as to 
the validity of the title given, as the original bequests had been 
made at a time when manumission by will was not authorized 
by law. So a sj)eoial act declared the will valid, and the heirs 



'C.urt lU-4-onlH, Libor C, 162, 361. Tho inovision of the act of 1715, 
thm till* I'rovim-iiil iind county courts could determine complaints between 
inulcm riiwl mrvjinU by wiiy of iK-tilion, may have brougiit petitions for 
frwioni U'forr iho counlv courts. (See 2 II. iK: McII., 2i) ; 4 (Jill, 257.) 



Manumission. I49 

of the negroes free and in full possession of the land, so as to 
give a good title.^ In 1752, when the slave population may 
have been forty thousand, was enacted the lirst law on manu- 
mission. Some masters had used their slaves as long as they 
were profitable, and had then turned them adrift to burden 
the community or to perish through want, to the great scandal 
of Christian society, as the act tells us. It was enacted, there- 
fore, that all slaves unable to support themselves should be 
supported by their masters ''in fitting food and clothing," 
and kept from begging. Delinquent masters could be put 
under bonds to do their duty. And slaves to be manumitted 
must be sound in body and mind, capable of labor and not 
over fifty years of age. And in order that there might be an 
uniform way of granting freedom, there was enacted further, 
that all manumissions must be in writing, under hand and 
seal, with two witnesses ; the papers to be acknowledged and 
endorsed by a justice, and then to be recorded within six 
months in the clerk's office of the county. This need of two 
witnesses, said the Court of Appeals in 1835, was to surround 
grants of manumission with such form and solemnity that 
slaveholders might be guarded against hasty and inconsiderate 
action. And the grant of freedom to slaves was declared null 
and void, if by a will or deed or any order, during the last 
fatal illness of the master; inasmuch, says the law, as the 
right to give freedom by last will may be attended with many 
evils. Manumission was also declared illegal when it woukl 
operate in predjudice of creditors.^ This act was entitled, an 
act to prevent disabled and superannuated slaves being set 
free, or the manumission of slaves by any last will or testa- 
ment. It dates from the time when an interesting case was 
before the authorities at Annapolis. By the will of a certain 
citizen, made shortly before his death apparently, in 1747, 
nineteen slaves were freed and given also a great part of 

1 1845, 327. 

' 1752, 1 ; 7 G. & J., 183 ; 5 H. & J., 253. 



150 The Negro in Maryland. 

his real and personal estate; but a niece of the testator began 
legal i)rooee< lings against the executors, to prove the will 
null and void. The executors, who made no claims to any- 
thing under the will, neglected to produce testimony or have 
witnesses examined in favor of the negroes, so a petition was 
pix-sentcd on their behalf to the judge of probate, Daniel 
Dulanev, Esq., asking that they might be admitted defendants 
" to defend the said libel," and that they might have the wit- 
nesses to the will. In answer, though the petition was not 
shown until after depositions were in and the probation closed, 
tlu-v were allowed two months in which to have depositions 
taken, in (^rder that all legal rights and advantages might be 
given them. Over a year later, in 1751, Mr. Dulaney gave 
the npiniun that the will was the result of the influence of the 
slaves — rather the will of the slaves than of the master. Such a 
will, he said, was contrary to law, and to pass it would be the 
greatest encouragement to the slaves of a person in the situation 
ol" the testator, to compel their master to give his property to 
them in prejudice of his own relations. The will was there- 
fore declared V(»id. On the prayer of the negroes, a court of 
delegates was appointed by the Governor to review the decree 
of Mr. Dulaney ; and this court closed its work some six 
niiMiths later, divided in opinion, two for and two against a 
confirmation. Finally, in 1752, another court of commis- 
sionei-s was appointed; the case was reviewed, the decree of 
Mr. Dulaney declared null and void, and the will established 
ami freetlom given, and all costs ordered to be paid from the 
tcHtator's estate.' In 1780 a petition for freedom of several 
Hlaves eaine before the General Court. Their master had 
|irojM-rly executetl a deed of manumission, but it was done 
during his Ia.st illnes,s, only eleven days before his death. 
Two wwks ejulier he had spoken of manumission as desirable, 
'"" '" ■'" """•■' to the public; but he had since, he said, 



' l{<x-.,r.l ..f ( .Mill ..r I ).l. 



atfs, Liber C. D., 186 pages. 



Manumission. 151 

changed his mind, and his conscience would not rest until he 
had freed the negroes. The magistrate testified to the nianu- 
mittor's soundness of mind ; but the General Court hold that 
freedom could not be granted, and the Court of Appeals con- 
firmed this/ In 1786, the question of a change in the law of 
1752 was raised in the House of Delegates, but was defeated 
by forty-four votes to eleven. In 1787, there was presented 
an address on the same subject from the yearly meeting of 
the Society of Friends, but it was referred to the next Assem- 
bly. Then it was given a committee of seven members, three 
of them being from the large slave-holding counties Anne 
Arundel and Prince George's. The committee reported four 
days later, that the subject was well worthy the attention of 
the legislature. Experience had pointed out, they said, that 
such laws as that of 1752 were inadequate to the purpose 
intended, and were neither directed by policy nor warranted 
by justice, for it was improper and unjust that any person, 
influenced by motives of religion or of humanity, should be 
debarred the right of manumitting his slaves at any time, 
by deed or will. On the second reading of this report, two 
weeks later, motions to amend so that the last will, to free 
slaves, must be executed by a testator in perfect health, or at 
least three months before death, were lost. Tiien, the House 
refused to concur with the committee's report by a vote of 
thirty-nine to twenty-four. On reconsideration, the amend- 
ment that the will be executed at least four nu)nth.s before 
decease, was carried by two votes, and then further considera- 
tion of the report was left for the next Assembly.^ There, 
in response to petitions from the Society of Friends "M the 
Society for the Abolition of Slavery, a committee of seven 
members reported to the House that restrictions on vohintary 
emancipation were neither good policy nor just. It should l)e 
the wish of every free community, said the committee througii 



1 2 H. & McH., 127. 

* House Journal, 1788, 22, 26, 41, &c. 



152 The Negro in Maryland. 

Mr. Wm. Pinkney, to abolish civil slavery, and no oppor- 
tunity should be neglected for reaching that end, by silent 
and jiradual steps, with the slave-owners' consent. The House 
in so far concurred as to pass a bill relaxing the stringent 
act of 175-J, but providing that no will should give free- 
dom unless it were luade three months before the testator's 
death. 'IMiis clause was struck out by the Senate. The House 
insisted on retaining it by a plurality of one vote. The Senate, 
by two votes, refused to recede, and the House then voted, 
bv twenty-six to twenty-one, to continue the act of 1752.^ 
Again, at the next session of Assembly, the Society of Friends 
renewetl their petitions, and again did the committee of the 
House urge the desired changes. This time the House con 
curred, and the amendment that the will be made three months 
U-forc decease, was defeated there by eleven votes. The act 
of 1 7!t< I was passal by forty voices to twenty-three. It allowed 
uiaiuniiission freely by deed, properly executed, as before, or 
bv will at any time, saving only the rights of creditors, and 
provided that the slave be not over fifty years and be able to 
work, at the time that he was to be free.^ 

in 1791 the House eonnnittee on Grievances and Courts 
gjive a lengthy report on the inconveniences and loss which 
••(•rtain citi/ens had received from the action of the Abolition 
Sn-iety in Baltimore, in legal proceedings over several peti- 
tions for freedom. Though one of the counsel for the society's 
agent.s aekn<iwledge(l finally that the petitioners seemed to 
have no grounds for I'reedom, yet new petitions were tiled. 
The coiiri had advised the society to pay the costs of former 
trials, but loiind (hat payment could not be compelled. The 
Houso, after hearing the memorials of the society in its 
defence, and examining some witnesses, condemned its action, 
and provided by law that no petitions for freedom, except on 
ap|Mml, c«»uld be tried a second time between the same parties, 

' Ilii.l., ITH'J. i:t, 78, 97, lO.s. 

• Ibi.l.. IT'.tn. 1 1, 1.-,, 'y\ Jkr. Arts of 17'JO, ch. 9. 



Manumission. \ fy.] 

unless the costs of the first suit, and all reasonable damages, 
were first paid or secured.^ 

During the last part of the eighteenth century, manumis- 
sion became more common. The population of the State, at 
the same time, was spreading out more and more. In 1793 
there was enacted that petitions for freedom, instead of com- 
ing before the General Court, should be tried in the counties 
where the petitioners lived ; but either party could apjieal to 
the General Court on matters of law, where the facts had been 
tried by a jury. And the county courts were authorized to 
compel, if necessary, the appearance of masters in such cases.* 
In 1796, the extreme age at which slaves could be manu- 
mitted was made forty-five instead of fifty. And there was 
added that in any case of petition for freedom thereafter in 
which the petition should be dismissed or judgment be given 
against the petitioner, all the legal costs of the case should be 
paid by the attorney prosecuting or appearing to the same, 
unless the court should deem that there had been a probable 
ground for supposing that the petitioner had a right to free- 
dom. When the House was considering the bill, a motion to 
strike out this entire provision was lost by thirty-three vt)tes 
to twenty-one.^ Two years later a memorial to the House 
from sundry inhabitants of Charles county, that the time in 
which slaves could bring suit for freedom might be limited, 
was referred to a committee of seven, but without result. 

By an act of 1804 — made part of the State constitution in 
1805 — a party to any suit or action who could give reasonable 
evidence that a fair and impartial trial could not be had in 
the county court, could have the case removed to another 



1 House Journal, 1791, 82, 106; Acts of 1791, ch. 75. There was an un- 
successful attempt at further legislation on the matter the next year. 

" 1793, 55. Either party could apply, of course, for trial by jury. 

=• House Journal, 1796, 82, &c.; Acts of 1796, 67. In 1844, in order to 
end some doubts which had been expressed, it was declared lawful for 
bodies politic or corporate to manumit under the act of 1796, and deeds 
already made were declared valid. 



154 The Negro in Maryland. 

county. A few years later, a negro woman of Charles county, 
a petitioner for freedom, gave her affidavit, according to the 
law, to sliow tiiat the trial could not probably be a fair one 
in that county. The court overruled her motion, but the 
C'(»urt f»f Appeals reversed this, holding that while a slave 
could not by law of testimony ordinarily make an affidavit, 
yet that an appeal for freedom was included in the act of 
1S04. And an act of 1810 allowed the transmission of 
record, in a case of petition for freedom or homlne replegiando, 
before the trial was begun, to the county in which, as shown 
by competent testimony, a female ancestor of the petitioner 
IkuI been held a slave at the time of the petitioner's birth, 
and where other material testimony could be had. Removal, 
of the case was also allowed from the county in which the 
IK'tition was filed to that in which the owner of the slave 
might live.* There was enacted in 1834, that all appeals 
from county courts on petitions for freedom should be heard 
and determined at the first term of the Court of Appeals after 
their entry .^ 

Slaves were frequently manumitted, to receive their freedom 
alter a specified term of years, and questions arose as to the 
legal status of the offspring of these, born during those years 
of service. Such offspring certainly became slav^es if there was 
no provision to the contrary in the deed or will manumitting 
tlie mother. An act of 1809 declared that persons who should 
mamnnit slaves, after January of the following year, to be 
free after some specified time or on the performance of certain 
conditi<»ns, might determine the condition of any issue which 
might Ih- Ixini iiicaiitime. Such issue, if there was no provi- 



' ISOl, W; 1810, (53; 9 Gill, 120; 3 H. & .!., 124. The residence of a 
•Uto, Miiii tlu' Court of Appeals, (in i) (iill, 120) depends on the niiister's 
will ; Ijiil if a niiiHter, on hearinji; that slaves were about to petition for 
frv(>doni, nhould remove them in order to injure their claim, the court of 
the it)nnly in whidi thev liad lived would still have jurisdiction of the case. 

» 1^.11 -J Is 



Manumission. 155 

sion to the contrary, would be slaves. When this bill was 
considered in the House, an attempt was made to change it so 
that such issue should in all cases serve the owners of the 
mother, twenty-five years for males and twenty for females, 
and should then be free ; but this was defeated bv a laro-e 
majority. 

As has been seen, no deed or will was valid to grant manu- 
mission to slaves who would be over forty-five years, or 
unable to gain a support, at the time of becoming free. The 
law, if carried out to the letter, would then operate to shut 
out not only the old or infirm, but also infants, who were 
plainly incapable of work. A certain young negress was 
manumitted by deed in 1803, to receive freedom when she 
became thirty years old, and any children born to her before 
that time were to be free at birth. A child of this woman, 
born during the terra of service, was treated as a free person 
until she was nineteen years old. On her petition, Baltimore 
city court confirmed her right to freedom ; but the Court of 
Appeals reversed the judgment, as no child was capable at 
birth of self-support, and hence of receiving freedom. Again, 
a certain negro woman and two children were manumitted by 
deed in 1825, when the children were very young. When, 
some ten years later, it was represented to the Assembly that 
those children might therefore be enslaved, and that their 
mother had supported them until they were able to support 
themselves, a special act was passed to ensure their freedum." 



1 1809, 171. 8 H. & J., 431. 

* 4 H. & J., 199 ; 6 H. tSc J, 17 ; 8 G. & J., 19 ; 1834, ch. 246. 

At tlie Assembly of 1808, the House received a petition for leave to man- 
umit a slave who was above the age limited by law. A bill was passod, but 
was defeated in the Senate. In 1825, a special act allowed the manumis- 
sion by deed of a slave above the age of forty-five, with the proviso that if 
the negro became unable to maintain himself, he should in no case come on 
the county for support, but should have the same claim on his old master 
or the master's estate, as if the act had not been passed. An act of 1827 
also made valid a deed of manumission to a negress, as if sh- win- under 



156 The Negro in Maryland. 

A deed of numumission, in order to grant freedom, must 
not only be properly executed before a magistrate and wit- 
nes<e<l l)y two witnesses, but be recorded within six months in 
the (-(.uiitv court. In a case on a petition for freedom in Anne 
Anuidel, in 1802, parol evidence was admitted to show that 
the two witnesses had been present when the deed of manu- 
mission was attested, though one only had signed; but the 
General Court and Court of Appeals reversed this, and the 
petition was lost. In 1810, a law declared valid all deeds of 
manumission acknowledged and recorded before that time, and 
invalid <»nlv in not being evidenced by two good witnesses — 
saving, of course, the rights of bond fide purchasers of slaves, 
and not freeing such as had already been adjudged slaves by 
any court. A similar bill was passed in 1826 ; not, however, 
to extend to cases of petitions for freedom then under litiga- 
tion, and not to grant freedom to any slave who would have 
been over forty-five or under ten years, when entitled to it, 
and who had not been acting as free for seven years.^ In 
one case, in 1832, deeds of manumission for three slaves, for 
.s<»me reason, not the fault of the slaves, were not recorded. 
Two yeai"s later they were recorded and made effectual by 
8|K»cial act of Assembly ; but one of the slaves had been twice 
sold meantime, and the county court and Court of Appeals 
both denied her j)eliti(Mi for freedom. A deed of manumission 
not recorded according to law, said the higher court, does not 
change the relation of ma.ster and slave. Nor could the peti- 
tioner in the present case have her freedom, for by that her 



fDrty-live iiiid iilile to inaiiitain licisolf; Imt before freedom could be granted, 
I ImiihI intiHt l)e Kiveii to the levy eourt of the county, with security, that 
llif MfKrf.s« Mhould receive $18.00 annually for her sujjport from tlie family 
KiviiJK her free<lom, (House Journal, 1808, 40, &c. V62b, 83. 1827, 158.) 

It in int(T«>t<tinK to note tiuit in nearly all the Nortiiorn States, so long as 
•liiviTv ItiHieil, iniixlers could not matuiinit witliout security to the town — in 
•omc cjiM-M, iHtnilH in a goo<ily sum — tliat the freedman should not become a 
piiblic i|iarK«'. 

'•J II. \ .1.. IM : IMO, ir,; 182r., '235. 



Maimmission. 157 

present owners would be deprived of their property. In (.ne 
case, in 1814, the Court of Chancery had put on record, under 
authority of a law giving certain general powers to chancery, 
a deed of manumission made some years before; hut tlie 
Court of Appeals held that deeds of manumission couhl not 
be so recorded as ordinary deeds. In no way could a master 
be compelled to have such a deed recorded.^ 

A certain citizen executed in 1812a deed of manumission by 
which a negro boy of his was to be free in 1840. But he con- 
tinued to hold the black — who had no idea of the deed or of 
any right to freedom — until his death in 1846. On being 
freed by his late master's executor, the black entered an action 
to recover the value of his services from 1840 to 184G ; but 
his rights to any damages were denied in the county court and 
in the Court of Appeals.^ 

No second suit on a petition for freedom between the same 
parties could be tried, if the charges of the first suit were 
unpaid. About 1855 a case of petition for freedom, removed 
from Baltimore city, was called in Prince George's county, 
but was dismissed, as the petitioners did not appear, with judg- 
ment for the defendant for about twelve dollars costs. On the 
same day, a second petition was filed, whereupon the defendant 



1 9 G. & J., 115; 4 H. & J., 249. In 1796 the House passed an act, in 
answer to a petition from three negroes, to make valid a deed of manumis- 
sion to them, which had been recorded by mistake in the office of the gen- 
eral court instead of in the county court. On the rejection of the bill by the 
Senate, the House added a saving clause for rights that might have been 
already acquired, and urged the Senate to pass it. We are satisfied, said the 
House, that the principles of this bill have often influenced the Legislature : 
this case seems to require legislative aid especially, as the negroes never 
had control of the deed, and so no neglect can be imputed to them. The 
Senate reconsidered the matter, but refused to pass the bill. (House 
Journal, 1796, Nov., 13, 69, 73.) In 1836 a special act allowed a free n.-gro 
to manumit his wife and children, whom he had purchased before 1831, but 
for whom he had executed by mistake, instead of a deed of manumission, a. 
bill of sale to their former owner. (1836, 167.) 

2 8 Gill, 322. 



158 The Negro in Maryland. 

at once filed an affidavit of his costs and expenses, and a stay 
of proceedings was ordered. The charges stated by the defend- 
ant, including not only board and jail fees of the negroes but 
also cost of counsel, amounted to over seven hundred and fifty 
dollars. From this the petitioners appealed ; but the second 
petition was finally dismissed, as costs had not been secured. 
The Court of Apjieals, reversing this judgment, allowed the 
case to be carried on under the second petition. Such large 
fees were not included in reasonable damages, held the court, 
and to allow such, or any counsel expenses, would only be to 
clog the right of further petition which it had been intended 
should \ie secured. Three years later, the court held that no 
appeal could lie from an order of the circuit courts ascertain- 
ing the amount of such costs to be paid, if the ascertainment, 
when made, was within the limits of the court's discretion.^ 

Hut the will validly made and the deed properly exe- 
cuKxl and recorded could not still give the intended free- 
dom, if it were shown that the rights of creditors would 
Ix; iiijuretl thereby. Several interesting cases under this law 
\verc brought before the Court of Appeals. One slave was 
manumitted by will in 1808 to be free at the age of twenty- 
eight. The debts of the testator were paid from his personal 
estate, exclusive of his negroes; but his wife renounced the 
devis&s and bequests, and took her thirds of the estate as 
allowwl by law, and this negro was allotted to her under 
oi-der of the orphans' court. When he became twenty-eight 
hf jK-'titioned the county court for freedom in vain. The 
Court of Appeals sustained this judgment, holding that, if the 
jxTsoMal estate of a slaveholder is not, after payment of debts, 
sunicicMt to give the widow her thirds, negroes bequeathed to 
Ixj free may Ik; allotted her as slaves for life. A certain citizen, 
a few years later, freed his slaves by will, declaring that if his 
iN'PM.nal i'Htate was lu.t enough, without the slaves, to pay his 
<lebt^, his executor might sell sotne of his real property, so as 



MOMd.,322; 14 Md., 64. 



Manumission. 159 

to leave his slaves free. The personal property alone was found 
insufficient, while the administrator admitted that real and j^er- 
sonal together would be enough or more without the slaves. 
From the decision of the county court denying their petition, the 
slaves appealed. The three judges before whom the case was 
tried in the Court of Appeals, while diifering somewhat in 
their reasoning, but agreeing in regrets that the wishes of the 
master could not be carried out, sustained the judgment of the 
lower court, on the ground that the question of the testator's 
real estate could not enter into the case, nor be dealt with by the 
executor, under the laws, M^ithout possible injury to the credit- 
ors — who were not parties to the case. But in another case, 
some eight years later, the Court of Appeals held that the 
inability to determine in a court of law as to whether the 
estate of the manumittor was sufficient to pay his creditoi-s, 
could not be taken so as to bar petitioners of their rights to 
freedom. The law, in its true construction, said the court, 
charges the whole of a manumittor's property, real and per- 
sonal, with the payment of his debts, in favor of his manu- 
mitted slaves. Nor is it incumbent on the slave to prove, as a 
condition precedent to his freedom, that the balance of his 
master's property was enough for all debts : the burden ot 
proof rests on the creditor. And the proper remedy for a 
creditor is by a bill in equity, where the slaves and all parties 
may appear, and an account be taken of all property. If the 
assets are then found inadequate, the slaves may be decreed to be 
sold, as necessary to pay the debt, for life or a term of years.' 
All negroes, said the Court, again, thirteen years later, declared 
by will to be free at the death of the testator or at any time 
thereafter are held by the executor and regularly appraised at full 
value, as are slaves for life. And no court would award them 
freedom, and so release the executor, until the time had elapsed 
within which creditors were warned to present claims, and 
the executor was required to settle his accounts— nor then, 



1 5 H. & J., 48 ; 2 H. & G., 1 ; 7 G. & J., 71. 



160 The Negro in Maryland. 

unle&s the court is satisfied that no i)rejudice could be done to 
creflitors. In case of deficiency of assets, tlie executor may 
hire out the slaves for a time or sell them, if necessary, by 
leave of the orphans' court; the proceedings of the court 
beinir open to investigation. And manumitted slaves are the 
proper parties, complainants, to proceed in equity to have a 
charge enforced on lands for the payment of creditors. Then, 
the legally manumitted slave, either with the executor's assent 
or l)v petition, may have his freedom secured by judgment in 
a «'(tiM-t of hnv.' All the testator's property, said the C'han- 
wllor, the same year, will in equity be charged with payment 
of his debts, in favor of slaves manumitted ; and in a judicial 
proceeding, to determine whether a deed is in prejudice of 
creditors, such slaves are entitled to the assistance of the heirs 
or pei-sons ht)lding the real estate, in taking the account of the 
amount ol" it.' The Court of Appeals, in 1858, assured to 
several negroes, who had filed a bill in equity, asking the 
<-oin-t to marshal their master's assets, the right to an injunc- 
tion, to restrain the prosecution of their petition for freedom, 
an<l any payment of legacies by the executor, vmtil the pro- 
oHHJiiigs in cquitv were settled. To the objection that negroes 
conld not make a pi'o])ei- aifidavit to verify the bill, the court 
replied that documentary evidence would be enough in such 
aises, to win the confidence of a court ^ A slave manumitted 
hy will, wli(» was sure that the master's estate, at the time of 
his death, was enough to pay all his debts thrice over, could 
not still be sure that he himself was free — until the executor's 
relca-'- had been given, and the official freedom papers secured 
at the county <-oiirt. l''or the Court of Appeals held that if 

' 6 (Jill. 291>. .\l8o, 12 Md., 274 ; 17 Md., 508. 

• .Md. (linn., I, -"JO. 

' \» K<K)ii tiH lUvKv 8iavf,s liiid aiiplifd for siirh ;in injunction from the cir- 
cuit i-mirl for llie county, the executor had applied to the orphans' court 
for Ifitvc lo K»ll them, to pav the tc-^tator's debts. Tlie orplians' court had 
rt'fuM-d to allow the sale— in wliidi it was sustained 1)V tlie Court of A]^- 
|M-nl». (12 Md.. -.iTI.) 



3fanumission. 1 o i 

in due course of administration, and by no fault of the admin- 
istrator, an estate changed so as to become insufficient for the 
debts, the right of manumitted slaves to freedom beeame void ; 
and, vice versa, slaves who might have been held by the exec- 
utor for payment of debts, could not be resisted in their claim 
to freedom, if the estate increased sufficiently in value.' The 
Court of Appeals, reversing the judgment of the orphans' 
court of Howard district, declared in 1848, that the State 
was entitled to a tax of two and a half per cent, from execu- 
tors on all negroes raaiumiitted by will, under an act of 1844, 
taxing legacies. The bequest of freedom to a slave, said the 
court, is a legacy within the meaning of that act.^ 

jSIanumitted slaves were clothed with these powers in favor 
of freedom. In 1828, a certain resident of Washino-ton county 
died, leaving the provision in her will that her executors were 
to free certain slaves, if of suitable age and condition, at such 
times as they, the executors, might deem expedient. For 
fourteen years the executors kept the negroes as their own 
slaves, though there was no legal hindrance to the desired free- 
dom. The Court of Appeals, with one justice dissenting, 
held that the negroes could apply to a court of equity that the 
execution of the powers created by their mistress' will might 
be enforced. Though in general a slave is incapable, said the 
court, of instituting a suit in a court of law or of equity, yet 
he has been made capable by law of acquiring freedom by 
deed or will, and so his ability to assert that right is recog- 
nized. Chancery cannot grant freedom, but may direct the 
execution of deeds of manumission, and so enable slaves to 
assert their claims to freedom in a court of law.' 



19G.& J., 103(1837). 

«6 Gill, 388. Act of 1844, ch. 237. Code of 1860, 81, 125. The Tourt 
of Appeals said, the next year, that there was no hardship or injustice in 
this tax ; that the objects for which the great debt of Maryland had ln-en 
contracted, the great public improvements, were believed to be beneficial 
to all property. (8 Gill, 310.) 

34 Gill, 249. 
11 



162 The Negro in Maryland. 

Ponding or during a case on petition for freedom, the peti- 
tioner was treated as a slave. In 1796, a slave entered an 
action of assault and battery and false imprisonment against 
his late master, for having held and imprisoned him for over 
two years, from the time when he filed his petition for free- 
dom to the time when it was granted ; but the General Court 
refused to give him damages.' It was usual, however, for 
the master of a petitioner to be required to satisfy the court 
that he would allow the slave to attend court when neces- 
sarv. 'J'he General Court held on an appeal, in 1802, that a 
master, in order to retain the services of a slave, a petitioner, 
must enter into a recognizance to suffer him to prosecute 
his case, and to use him well ; and that the master, further, 
should he appeal from a grant of freedom, must enter into 
bond with security to prosecute the appeal, in order to keep 
the l)lack in his service pending the appeal.^ We find an 
injunction served in Baltimore in 1857, on certain officers 
and slave dealers, to prevent the sale of a negro until his 
claims to freedom were determined. In a case in 1831, 
in which the punishment of a negro convicted of crime 
would d('i>cnd on his status as slave or free, we find counsel 
assigned the prisoner, and the right of appeal further assured 
liim, by order of the Asseml)ly. There was enacted in 1856, 
that when proceedings should be entered into, for declaring 
void a <leed of manuniission, on the ground of fraud or preju- 
dice of cnnlitoi-s, and for the sale of negroes for payment of 
debt, it should not be necessary as usual to summon the slaves 
iK'fore the court, but a guardian ad litem should be appointed. 
The guardian, who should be "some gentleman learned in 



':» H. A MoH., -r.."). Tliis nise an.l tliat in 8 Gill (322) seem to be the 
only cntM-s in which actions were br'jut,'ht by froednien to recover damages 
for fiilB«> inipriHonnient, itc. 

*S«' lt.-|Kirl to Houst' of DeU-Kiitcs on tlie Baltimore Abolition Soc, 1791, 
1 II. .V .1., 'JiiH. A bill was intnxluced in the House of Delegates in 1795, 
to |ircvrnt thf n-nidval from the State of those who had petitioned or might 
jitlilion for frewioni, but it was defeated by eleven voices. 



3fan iimission. i C) 3 



lem- 



the law," should defend his wards as they might defend the 
selves, if free, and the court on full hearing should i)ass such 
judgment as would be given if all the parties to the case were 
free men. And all costs, including a fee of twenty or thirty 
dollars to the guardian, in discretion of the court, should fail 
on the complainant.^ 

When a certain petition for freedom came before Baltinjore 
county court, in 1848, there was stated to the court that the 
petition was in the slave's name but was tiled without his 
authority. The slave, on examination, stated that he did not 
Avish to have the case pursued ; that his only hope of freedom 
lay in his mother's effort to purchase him. So the case was 
dismissed. In the same court, the next year, it was suggested 
by counsel that the free parent of a petitioner for freedom who 
seemed to be under age and whose petition was about to be 
dismissed, might have interests which would allow her to 
maintain the petition, but the court held that the right to free- 
dom was strictly a personal one. And in another case, in 
Avhich a father petitioned in behalf of his children, a new peti- 
tion had to be filed, in the name of the parties asking frealom, 
by their next friend. 

The cost for recording a deed of manumission was the ordi- 
nary trivial fee for record. And a certified copy of a deed was 
always deemed good evidence of freedom. A bill was juissed 
in 1805 to prevent, as we read, the great mischiefs which had 
arisen from slaves who had gotten possession of certitiralcs of 
free blacks, and had so passed as free. Certificates of free- 
dom were to be granted only by clerks of the county courts and 
registers of wills, and were to contain the particulars for iden- 
tification of the negroes and statements of the time at which 



' 1856, 140. We notice that in two cases, county officers were onlcrod liy 
the Assembly to pay jailors for taking care of and feeding neveral peti- 
tioners for freedom. It is mentioned in one case that they belonged U> an 
insolvent estate. Experience has fully shown, said the Court of Ai)iKal«, 
that negroes before the courts as petitioners for freedom have nt-ver lo-.t 
their rights from the want of generous professional aid. (S (iill, ^ol.) 



jg4 The Negro in Maryland. 

freetlom had been acquired. No other person could give a 
cvrtifi«\nte, under ])onalty of five hundred dollars, and clerks 
and registers were lial)le to the same amount if they issued any 
illegally. A negro applying for a certificate must prove that 
he was the person manumitted, and no second paper would be 
given unless he took oath or j)roved by some credible and 
disinterested \yitness that the original was lost. Another 
act, two vcars later, provided that papers could be given only 
in the counties where the deeds or wills had been recorded. In 
1831, the records of St. Mary's county, and, a few years later, 
tht.tse of Worcester, were destroyed by fire. In the acts of the 
Assembly allowing documents to be recorded over again, and 
the existence of rights and possessions to be established, there 
is no special mention of certificates of manumission. But an 
Hf't of 1852, after the burning of Dorchester court-house, 
^•(piircd the commissioner appointed to re-establish all records 
and legal documents, to take all testimony as in other cases, 
ill n-gard to the rights of such free negroes as might apply to 
liini in wi-jting, and to report this evidence to the circuit 
(siiirt, which should decide on the validity thereof. From 
this judginrnt the negro could appeal, as in cases of petition 
for free<lom.' 

From time to time, petitions for fin-thcr legislation, mostly 
to restrict manumission, were received in the House of Dele- 
pitesand referral to committees without further result. Thus, 
ill ]H'l'l, from sundry resiticnts of Dorchester, to prevent 
finuiK-ipation by will ; and five years later, to restrict all 
emancipation to certain conditions. A bill, in 1823, to com- 
pfl all slaves thcrcallcr luanuniitti'd to leave the State, was 



' A rcrUin negro woman was manumitted in 1823, and a few years after 
IxitiKlit M-vi-nil acres of land, tlie deed for which was properly executed and 
riN-onlid. Yenis after she lost her deed of manumission, whioii, as was then 
iimvrtained, had never heon properly recorded. She was then too old to get 
a new Av*-t\ from the Jieirs of her old master. So a special act, in 1847, 
tc-^UhI ihf hind in iier, an if slie were still possessed of her freedom papers. 
(\6il, 20(1.) 



Manumission. 1 05 

referred to a day of the following summer— when the Assonihly 
would not be in session— by a vote of fifty-one to twelve. 
During these years a number of petitions were presented to 
the House of Delegates, from slaves, that some defective man- 
umission might be declared valid. All were considered, and 
at almost every session, a special act or two gave the desired 
freedom to some petitioners.^ Just before the Assembly of 1 83 1 , 
the Southampton insurrection occurred in Virginia. Marvland 
had for some years encouraged the work of the American Col- 
onization Society, but now the plan of colonization in Africa 
was adopted as a State policy. The act of 1 831 ordered the Gov- 
ernor and Council to appoint, as soon as convenient, a board of 
three managers, members of the Maryland Colonization Society, 
whose duty should be, in short, to have removed from Maryland 
all blacks then free who might be willing to leave, and all 
those who might be freed thereafter, willing or not. And the 
State pledged its credit for this purpose to the sura of not over 
two hundred thousand dollars. Every county clerk who 
should receive a deed of manumission for record, and every 
register of wills, on the admission to probate of a will by which 
any slave was given freedom, was ordered to send the State 
board of managers, within five days, an extract from deed or 
will, with the names and age of every slave manumitted. The 
board should at once notify the American or State Coloniza- 
tion Society, that the freedmen might be taken to Liberia. 
Should the Society refuse to remove them, or should tlicy 
refuse to go, the board was authorized to remove them to such 
proper place out of Maryland as they would be willing to go 
to, and to give them some reasonable assistance there, until 

iThus, 1821, ch. 117; 1823, 170; 1824, 39 & 78; 1827, 48. Jn 1829 a 
resident of Kent county petitioned for a special act to release to liini any 
claims of tlie State to the personal estate of a late relative. On the other 
hand, a number of residents of Kent and vicinity asked that oeriain 
slaves of the estate niisht be freed. The Committee on (grievances couM 
not decide the case, and the House voted in favor of the petitioner by two 
votes. (House Journal, 1829, 49, 328. Acts of 1829, 182.) 



166 The Negro in Maryland. 

thev shonlfl be able to help themselves. And if any person 
niaruirnittcd should refuse to leave Maryland, and persist in 
reniainin;^;, tiie sheriff should be called on by the board, and 
he was thereupon required to arrest and transport such person. 
All slaves, of any age, could bo freed. In case any slaves 
njanurnitted could not be removed without separating a family, 
it was provided that slaves might if they desired, renounce 
freedom, before the court, and remain at home as slaves. 
The board of managers could hire out manumitted persons 
whom they might have to remove, to pay the expenses of 
removal. But to all this there was the important proviso, 
thtit the orphans' courts might grant annual permits to re- 
main ill the State to such manumitted persons as were deserv- 
ing i\\}\n good character.^ On consideration of the bill in the 
House, it was moved in vain to amend this, so as to allow 
niamnnitted slaves to remain, on condition of giving bond for 
gfMKl l)C'havior, to the amount of one hundred dollars, with 
security. The bill was passed by thirty-seven votes to twenty- 
three. The Senate added the amendment that manumittors 
sliould, as before, be liable for the support of those freedmen 
who might become burdens to the public by age or inability. 
At the next session, was added that a sheriff who should 
neghn-t to remove a freedman within a month after receiving 
notification from the board of managers, became liable to fiftv 
dollars fine. But while the Assembly furnished these stringent 
means for the reduction of the free black population, public 
Kciitimcnt neglected to call for their enforcement. In but a 
single instance was a sheriff calle<l on, under the law of 1831, to 
remove a mamimitted slave from the State. "The harshness 
that prompted the above legislation," says a gentleman prom- 
iiKMil ill the eoluiii/ation work, "soon gave way to the kindly 
fti'ling that had always influenei'd the people of Maryland 
toward)* the eoloied population."" Colonization was carried 



'Tlii».«> who wort' ftitilletl to freedom under deeds already recorded or 
wilU iilnndy |»rol.nle<l, were exeinja from the operations of the aet. 
•1831, 281. "Maryland in Liberia, " J. IJ. IJ. Lalrobo, Ki. 



Manumission. 1(37 

on by some earnest workers, with the encouragement of the 
State, but manumitted slaves were not carried away against 
their will. The number of manumissions rej)orted to the 
board of managers from 1831 to 1845 was some twenty-three 
hundred and fifty. Of these, eleven hundred were freed forth- 
with ; one hundred and seventy were manumitted to be free 
on some condition, such as emigrating to Africa; the rest, 
after service for stated terms. From 1845 to 1850, some 
eighteen hundred and fifty more manumissions were reported.' 
Some negroes, freed by will without mention by name, probably 
were not reported. To what extent manumitted slaves received 
annual permits of residence from the orphans' courts, would 
not be easy to ascertain. There was a favorable report from 
the House committee, in 1844, for a bill to abolish the jiower of 
the court to issue them, in Calvert county; and, next year, a 
bill to the same purport for Charles county — another large 
slave-holding county — was passed by the House. But if 
manumitted slaves were not forced to leave against their will, 
it is obvious that such permits would be needed only to secure 
legal, not actual, residence. 

The Assembly of 1832 enacted that all deeds of manumis- 
sion which might have been executed but not recorded before 
the act of 1831, could be recorded then within six months 
without makiny; the freedmen liable to that act. And deeds 
of manumission recorded before 1831, but attested by only 
one witness, were declared valid. And, further, any slave 
who could satisfy the orphans' court that he — or some one 
for him — had an understanding fi)r the purchase of his free- 
dom, on which part payment had been made before 1831, was 
made exempt, on becoming free, from the act of '31. In 1833 
a further supplement made valid other defective papers of 
manumission — entitled, as the act reads, to the same consider- 
ation and protection. From time to time, also, special acts 



^Reports of Committees to Assembly of 184G and to Coiisiilutional Con- 
vention of 1850. 



Igg The Negro in Maryland. 

were passed, to make valid ineffectual grants of freedom — 
dating from both before and after 1831— or to allow manu- 
mission. By two acts in 1833, certain manumitted slaves were 
expressly exempted from any effect of the act of 1831. At 
least fourteen petitions for special acts were presented the 
House, in 1834. Five were reported unfavorably, bills in 
favor of two j)assed the House but were rejected in the Senate, 
and seven bills were passed. These acts varied in principle — 
according to the wont of special legislation. In 1835, a free 
negro was empowered to manumit his wife and four children, 
whom he had i)urchased but could not free, owing to the act 
of 1.S31.' When a certain free black died, in 1834, without 
manuinittiiig as he had planned to do, his wife and two chil- 
dren, whom he had purchased, the Assembly declared them 
free, capable «tf holding property, and heirs of each other. 
Aiiotlier freeman had bought his wife and three children 
fmm an administrator, and the wife, having borne him five 
other children, died without having been freed. The father 
then dietl without freeing his eight children — but these also 
were declared free, heirs of their father and of each other. 
A certain free black of Worcester county asked leave to free 
his ehildn-n, in 1835. A bill in his favor, introduced by the 
committee on Colored Population, ])asscd the House, but was 
rejeeted by the Senate. Tin-ee years latter, he tried again, and 
again the Senate objected, but finally passed the bill. One 
freiHJnuin left at his death several hundred dollars, and a 
«lav« — his oidy son. The children of his old master petitioned 
that the slave might be bought with the money and freed. 
This w:is granted — on condition that he be subject to all the 
hiw.s then, or thereafter to be, in force against free blacks resid- 
ing ill (Ik- State. This was in 1845. A free neffro who 



'Oil U-iiiK fri-wl, lliev hocamo I'lititU'd to all the legal privileges of free 
blnckk— iiiiy law to ilu- toiilrarv nutwiilistaiuling. As a slave owner could 
frw liji. NJuviii Milijc.-t to the act of IH'M, it is obvious that such acts as these 
»»Ti- lu Mt wn- 1. umI r.vi, I. .„.■.■ Mild a good title to property. 



Manumission. ](J9 

owned his wife and children, died intestate without lethal 
relatives within the fifth degree, so that his personal estate, 
after payment of debts, devolved on the State. An act of 
1846, ordered the administrator to free the slaves, to be sub- 
ject to the act of 1831. In two other cases, in 1853 and 1856, 
the wife and children and nephew and niece of deceased free 
negroes, were similarly disposed of. But when the attention 
of the Assembly — or more properly speaking, probably, (.f 
the House committee — was called in 1841 to the case of a free 
negro who had died suddenly without freeing, as he had in- 
tended to do, his Avife and children and grandchildren, a 
special act freed the entire family, with the proviso that they 
leave Maryland within a year, never to return. In 1852, 
two slaves, the sons of a free black who had died without will 
and near legal relation, were ordered to be put to service, 
under the orphans' court, until they became twenty-one years 
of age. If they then agreed to remove from Maryland within 
a year, they would be free, otherwise they would remain 
slaves ; though, if they became free, the orphans' court might 
give them annual permits of residence, if it saw fit.^ 

The intentions of some manumittors, in freeing slaves with 
the condition attached that they should emigrate to Africa 
or elsewhere, were frustrated by decisions of the Court of 
Appeals. The will of a certain slave owner, dated 1831, 
declared that all his negroes should be free at thirty-eight 
years of age, provided they should leave Maryland witliin 
thirty days after reaching that age, and should not return to 
reside. If they so returned, they should be slaves to his 
heirs. One of the blacks reached that age in 1845, and 
received a certificate of freedom from the register of wills. 
He then went at large as a freeman and remained in Mary- 
land. Four years later, the second husband of his old mis- 
tress notified him that he must give security or leave the State, 



iSee 1833, 97, 231; 1834, 245; 1835, 68, 266; 1838. 385; 1841, 232; 
1845, 314; 1846, 144; 1852, 207; 1853, 413; 1856, 72. 



170 The Negro in Maryland. 

uii(kr penalty of being sold, as he had stayed longer than 
allowed hy the will which gave him freedom. Of this he 
took no notice; but was forced to protect himself by applying 
for freedom. Both Baltimore county court and the Court of 
Appeals held him to be free. A testator, said the higher 
court, may prescribe the period when freedom may begin, but 
he cannot put an end to a state of freedom. That the peti- 
tioner in this case was to be free at thirty-eight years is shown 
by the conditions attached, for the performance of these would 
require that the black be free. Such conditions were wholly 
subseiiuent to the grant of freedom, and were not authorized 
by law. A petition for freedom was filed, in 1856, in Calvert 
c-ounty, by a certain negro woman, Lucinda, for herself and her 
seven children. The will under which freedom was claimed, 
which had been executed and probated in 1840, gave the 
woman to a certain person until she became twenty-seven, 
when, reads the will, she shall be free to go to Africa at the 
end (if her term, and carry with her any child or children she 
may then have, under the age of five years. The judgment 
«»f thf circuit court was that the mother was free. The Court 
of Appeals also confirmed her freedom, holding that the words 
"to go to Africa" did not affect it. So, in another ease, 
negroes who were devised to be free, to go to Africa, but to 
Ix? slaves if they refused to leave, were deemed absolutely 
free.' 

The circuit court in the case of Lucinda, had adjudged that 
the children were not free. The Court of Appeals held that 
ull children born after she reached the age of twenty-seven 
were frec!, as she was, but that such children as were under 
five at that time were not entitled to freedom, as she had not 
removed to Africa. A master, said the court, may limit the 
time at which fretnlom is to begin, and if this is fixed by a 
contingent event, and the event does not occur, the negro 
runmins a slave. Certain ney-roes were left in 1837 to an 



(Jill, 311; :; M.l., ll'J; 11 Md., \m Si 115. 



Manumissi(m. 171 

executor in trust, to be hired out until all debts of the estate 
were paid, when the executor might, if he chose, take to Ken- 
tucky or elsewhere such as were willing to go, and should 
there manumit them. Twelve negroes, petitioners under this 
will, were granted freedom in 1859, by the circuit court of St. 
Mary's county, but the Court of Appeals reversed this judg- 
ment. The will ordered that any of the slaves who sliould 
refuse to leave Maryland could be sold, and such a choice, said 
the court, is not inconsistent with a state of slavery : the very 
act of 1831 allowed manumitted slaves to renounce, if they 
chose, the freedom about to be secured them. And, in this 
case, the removal of the blacks by their consent was a con- 
dition precedent to manumission.^ 

There was enacted in 1858, that no slave thereafter manu- 
mitted by deed or will upon condition of leaving the State or 
any other contingency or condition, should be entitled to free- 
dom until the condition had been performed.* And no slave 
could be manumitted who was not at the time of manumission 
over ten and under forty-five years, and able to earn a liv- 
ing by labor. In 1860, manumission was totally prohibited, 
and free blacks over eighteen years of age were empowered, if 
they chose, to get permission from the courts to renounce free- 
dom and choose masters.^ The prohibition of manumission 
was anticipated largely in some parts of the State. There were 
said to have been one hundred and thirty-six slaves freed in 
Frederick county during three months. In Baltimore county, 
during the last ie\v weeks— and mostly during the last few 
(iays — before the new act went into force, eighty-one slaves 
were manumitted. 



114 Md., 109; 17 Md., 413. 

* We find that a bill to require all negroes to leave tlie State, who had 
been or might be freed on that condition, was passed by the House in 1S54, 
by a vote of 49 to 5. It was probably the same bill as, or a precursor to, 

1858, 307. 

3 1860, 323. The right to manumit was granted again in 1SG4, ,»ouie six 
mouths before slavery was abolished. 



172 The Negro in Maryland. 

About 1784, a certain citizen of Anne Arundel county was 
known to possess two negro women, Dinah and her daughter 
Livinia. But a dozen or more years later, these negroes were 
going at large as free women, renting small tenements, owning 
])r(»I)ertv, and in every way living as freemen in the neighbor- 
iuKwl of, and to the knowledge of their old master. He died 
in 1805, leaving all his property to his wife, with remainder 
after lier death to his children. She settled the estate and died 
in 1.S24. None of the children made any claim to Dinah, to 
Livinia or iier brothers and sisters, or to the children of 
Livinia, until in 1832 an heir took out letters of adminis- 
tration on the estate, and seized on the issue of Livinia 
as slaves for life. The county court decided that there Was 
presumption that Dinah had been legally manumitted, and the 
C'()urt of Appeals, two years after, affirmed this judgment. A 
negro in Maryland, said the higher court, was presumed to be 
a slave, and on petition for freedom must bear the burden of 
proof of free ancestor or of manumission. Yet, to quiet pos- 
session, the court, upon a proper foundation being lai<l for it, 
will in certain cases direct the jury to presume the existence 
of a deed of manumission, as in the case of other deeds and 
patents. The j)resumption of a deed of manumission must be 
founded on ac-ts of the petitioner or his ancestors, inconsistent 
with a state of slavery, acts known to the owner, and which 
could only be accounted for rationally on a supposition that 
lie had inteudcnl to free his slave. If the exercise of apparent 
freedom were without the owner's knowledge, or began only 
Hhortly liefore his death, no such presumption could be drawn. 
In IHIW;, a negro woman who had been living as a free woman 
in Haltimore for six years, was put into jail as a runaway. 
She iM'titioned for freedom, but the defendant showed that she 
had Urn l«.rn a slave, had belonged to a late resident of Queen 
Anne's county, and was included iu the inventory of the estate, 
and tliat he a- administrator had received an order from the 
(ir|.lian.s' c.urt. in rej.ly to his application, to sell her. The 
petition wa.s ,1. i,ir,| in liallimore city court; but the Court 



Manum iss ion . 1 7 ,3 

of Appeals held that while the fact of the negro's living as 
free was not evidence that all debts of her master had been 
paid, as there was no proof that her whereabouts were known 
to his representatives, yet, on the other hand, the order for sale 
from the orphans' court was not sufficient evidence of the 
insufficiency of the estate, in opposition to a claim for freedom. 
Sent back to the city court, the petition was granted.' Aban- 
donment of a slave by the OM'ner, said the Court of Appeals in 
another case in 1850, is not a legitimate mode of manumission, 
nor even in itself a sufficient foundation for the presumption 
of a deed of manumission. Nor is the presumption of a deed 
authorized, as a matter of law to be declared by the court, or 
of fact to be found by a jury, on the ground of acting as free 
with the master's knowledge, unless the negro has so acted 
uninterruptedly for a period of at least twenty years. A negro 
woman was allowed by her mistress, in 1831, to live with her 
reputed husband, with the understanding that he should have 
her free forever, if he would raise for her mistress two of her 
children then young. The woman accordingly went at large, 
and was not molested by her old mistress, who lived until 
]846 and who knew of her whereabouts, nor by the heirs of 
her mistress. Four children born to her after 1831, petitioned 
for and received freedom in 1851, and the Court of Appeals 
affirmed the judgment, on the presumption that the mother was 
legally manumitted when she went at large.^ But the act of 
1860, prohibiting manumission, declared that the fact that a 
negro went at large and acted as free, or was not chiimed by 
any owner, shoi>ld not be deemed evidence of the execution 
previously of any deed or will granting freedom, nor be taken 
as a ground for presuming freedom.^ 



' 6 G. & J., 86 ; 8 do., 102. 

» 9 Gill, 120; do., 483. 

=« A bill was reported by a committee to the House of Delegates, in 1821, 
for an act of limitations, to prevent slave owners from reclaiming female 
slaves and their posterity, after having allowed them to marry free men and 
live as free; but it was referred without result to the next Assembly. 



174 The Negro in Maryland. 

A ctTtain negro woman who liad been given certain lands 
bv will of her deceased master, was granted a certificate of 
fretnluiu by Prmce George's county court, which was confirmed 
by the Court of Appeals, in 1821, on the ground that a de- 
vise of property, real or personal, to a slave by his owner 
entitles him also to freedom, by implication. A certain resi- 
dent of Charles county devised by his will, probated in 1857, 
that a ne««-ro woman and her four children "shall work for 
themselves, by paying my executors, annually, one cent per 
vear hire." The balance of his property was left to certain 
j)arties, by a residuary clause. The executors claimed the 
freedom of the negroes, the residuary legatees o]iposed, and 
the circuit court, in equity, gave them to the legatees. The 
Court of Appeals affirmed this judgment, as the intent of the 
testator was evidently that the negroes should be discharged 
from servitude, and be free in fact but not in law — a state 
entirely contrary to the policy of the law, and in plain viola- 
tion itf the act of 1831 touching manumitted slaves, and of 
that of 1817 prohibiting owners of slaves to allow them to 
go at large and hire themselves out.^ 



' 'y II. \ J., I.')! ; 17 >f,l.^ 23. Tlie negroes licre (17 Md.) were notdeemed 
|>«r(icH lo iliu jircK't'iiliiigs, being dealt with by the courts as property. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Free Negro. 

To end a study of African slavery with manumission would 
be neither thorough nor just. For the status of the freedman 
shows most clearly the distinction that was felt, aside from 
the relation of master and slave, between Anglo-Saxon and 
African ; and the growth of the free black population affected 
more and more all questions of slavery and emancipation. If 
we find, on the one hand, slaveholders anxious for the repres- 
sion or banishment of the free-black, as dangerous to their 
interests, we find also many zealous opponents of slavery una- 
ble to believe that the whites and blacks could live together 
in freedom and in peace. We have left those laws which 
affected all negroes, free and slave alike, to be noticed under 
the head of the free negro, to emphasize the better this race 
distinction.^ 

The number of free colored persons was small and there 
was little mention of them, tmtil the close of the eighteenth 
century. The population of Baltimore county — including 
the later Harford county— in 1752, was given as over eleven 
thousand free whites, nearly a thousand white servants, be- 
tween five and six hundred convicts— the imported felons, 
one hundred and sixteen mulatto slaves, one hundred and 
ninety-six free raulattoes, and four thousand and twenty-seven 



1 The subject can be studied to great advantage in Maryhmd. In several 
of the lower counties there were more slaves than whites, wliile tl.e total 
free black population was larger than that of any other slave Slate. 
^ * 175 



176 The Negro in 31aryland. 

iipgro slaves and eight free negroes/ In the lower counties, the 
proportion must have been less. The census of 1790 gives 
about eight thousand free colored persons in the State. Some 
of these, or their ancestors, had come as freemen, most had 
been manumitted.^ From this time on, the number increased 
with surprising rapidity. In January, 1807, was begun the 
permanent policy of forbidding the removal of free negroes 
or mulattoes into Maryland. The bill passed the House by 
a vote of forty-three to eight. No free black coming in, 
except sailors, wagon drivers and messengers in the actual 
service of a non-resident, could stay over two weeks, under 
penalty of ten dollars a week. And those failing, on convic- 
tion, to pay the fines or give satisfactory security for departure 
within two weeks, w^ere to be sold by the sheritF for a term 
sufficient to pay fines and costs. No one could employ or 
harbor a non-resident free black without liability to a fine of 
five dollars a day.^ But the blacks continued to come. In 
1814 and 18 IG, bills for further legislation passed the House, 
tiie second by the casting vote of the Speaker, and were de- 
feated in the Senate. In 1822, sundry inhabitants of Wor- 
cester county jX'titioned that the free blacks coming into their 
county from Virginia might be fined or whipped. The next 
year, a supjdcmentary act declared that no length of residence 
would ex('m])t from punishment, and that those who might re- 
tinii or rniiaiii alter IxMug punished, should be again arrested, 
and ordcri'd the magistrates and officers of nine counties to 
enforce the law.* (Officers could be fined ten dollars for neg- 
lect. Tlie Senate at first rejected this bill, but yielded to the 
reprenentJition of the House that the evils against which the 

'<;riiruli'H Anijiils of Baltiinire, 88. Tlio distinction hotween negroes 
Kixi iiinhitlocM In interesting. 

• Wf (in.l the mere mention u( tlie reading in tiio House of Delegates, 
in H<'-J, uf n petition from tlie rr<<>liurn people of eolor in Maryland. 

♦ lH'j:i. |C,1. The eoiuities named were Allegany, Anne Arundel, Calvert, 
Charlus Kent, .Montguntery, Prince George's, Somerset and Worcester. 



The Free Negro. ]77 

act of 1806 bad been directed, bad increased in ten-fold ratio in 
tbe counties on tbe Virginia line. We find mention of peti- 
tions for residence on bebalf of some twenty negroes, between 
1806 and 1831, but eight of these only were favored. One 
fellow, for exam])le, from Virginia was given legal residence, 
as it appeared that he had lived in Maryland fo"r some time' 
usefully employed in boating, and had proven his good char- 
acter. In 1824, the House passed a bill in favor of a certain 
black who had moved from Virginia into Charles county, but 
it was rejected in the Senate. The man seems to have then 
moved into another county and to have renewed his petition 
at the next session of Assembly, but with the same result. A 
colored woman of Pennsylvania asked leave to move to Mary- 
land in vain, — the House refusing, on reconsideration of the 
bill, to admit her on condition that she should procure a bond 
of fifty dollars, conditioned for her good behavior. The next 
year, 1829, leave was refused for a bill to allow a member of 
the House to import a free black to work at his forge. Later 
in the session, the bill was again brought in, but so amended 
as to limit the residence to five years; and was then defeated. 
On the other hand, several free blacks were allowed to bring 
in their wives. 

More stringent legislation followed the Nat Turner insur- 
rection, in 1831. The fine for remaining in the State after 
ten days was fifty dollars a week — half to the informer — on 
conviction before a justice; and sale, as before, in default. 
For harboring or employing the black, the fine was raised to 
twenty dollars a day after the expiration of four days — half 
to the informer — to be recovered before a justice, with the 
right of appeal to the court. And any negro who might 
leave Maryland and remain away over thirty days, would be 
deemed a non-resident and liable to the law, unless before 
leaving he should deposit with the county clerk a written 
statement of his plans, or on returning, could prove by cer- 
tificate that he had been detained by sickness or wercion. 
Wao'oners, hired servants with their masters, and sailors on 
12 



178 The Negro in 3[aryland. 

vessels having white officers, were exempted, as were those 
who might euter the State and be prevented from leaving by 
8ickne.s8 or accident. And, to encourage colonization, persons 
might go and come at will between Maryland and Liberia. 
Each Assemblv received some half dozen petitions for resi- 
dence. One bill, to allow a black to bring in his wife, passed 
the House and was thrown out in the Senate; while, several 
yem-s later, a black of Washington county was allowed to 
brin«j- in his wife, on condition that she should uot leave that 
county. One negro was allowed, in 1833, to move mto 
Charles county from Virginia, on paying fifty dollars to the 
State, and giving bond with two securities, citizens of that 
county, in the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, for his 
gocid bi'iiavior for a year. Another was given residence, in 
1H37, on i)ayment of fifty dollars for the State Colonization 
Society, and a bond of two thousand dollars. Out of six 
applications fi)r residence, in 1835, one only was granted. 
F(HM- petitions were rejected the next year. And the next 
year, again, seven were rejected and one granted. Some were 
.signed not only by the negroes but by friendly citizens. 

In 1830, iM'titions were presented in the House of Delegates 
from sundry residents of Baltimore and Harford counties, 
an<l one, two years later, from Queen Anne's county, for more 
rttringeut laws. A motion to inquire into the expediency of 
allow iug free blacks to enter the State for the shad and her- 
ring fisheries, was lost by one vote. In 1839, there was en- 
aete«i that no free blaek belonging in any other State, could 
ent<'r Maryhiud, except servants with their masters, under 
|K-nalty of twenty dollars for the first offence, to be given as 
11 reward to the taki-r-up, and of five hundred dollars for a 
w-cond oll'eiux) — half to the taker-up or informer, half to the 
C<»loniz:ition Society. All cases came before the county 
or orphans' oairts. In default of i)ayment of these fines 
uixl (iKsLs, the blacks would be sold as slaves to the highest 
liidder, whether a resident of Maryland or not. If a black 
who had paid the fine for the first offence did not remove 



The Free Negro. 179 

within five days, he would be deemed liable to punishment 
for a second offence. But it was made lawful, by another act 
of the same session, to encourage emigration, for free blacks 
to visit, and return from, Trinidad or British Guiana, with 
view to possible colonization there, provided they could first 
satisfy the courts of their sincerity of purpose, and obtain 
licenses to go and come, and that they return within eighteen 
months, unless detained by a reasonable cause. Free blacks 
of Maryland could, as we have seen, remain out of the Stat<i 
for less than thirty days, at will, and for a longer time by 
permit. In 1844, this privilege of a longer absence was lim- 
ited to the period between the first of May and November 
yearly, and the permits were given in the discretion of the 
orphans' courts, on the written recommendation of thrc^ 
well known citizens.^ The act of 1839 had forbidden the 
entrance of any blacks belonging to any "State," and as much 
annoyance was said to have been caused by blacks coming 
from the District of Columbia, the words " district or terri- 
tory " were added, in 1845. In 1840, the answer to a peti- 
tion of ninety-five citizens of Caroline county, against this 
strict legislation, had been leave to withdraw. In 1847, 
sundry citizens of Kent asked for such action as would wholly 
prevent free blacks from going and coming. The committee 
on Colored Population was divided. The majority deemed 
the existing laws sufficient. The minority said it was scry 
necessary for the protection of the slaveholders bordering on 
the free States, that all communication should cease between 
the free blacks of Maryland and of those States. If the 
former were allowed to go and come, there was great danger 
of a coalition being formed which might result in most alarm- 
ing consequences to slaveholders. This minority report was 
accepted, but the bill introduced accordingly was not then 
passed. Two years later, there was enacted that any free black 
of Cecil, Kent or Queen Anne's counties who might cross the 



U839, 38; 1844, 283. Part of 1S31, 323, repealed by 1844, IG. 



180 The Negro in Maryland. 

State lino would be deemed a non-resident and liable to the 
act of 1839. Tills evidently bore hard on farmers and other 
residents near the boundary. Two hundred and thirty citizens 
of Ce^il petitioned, in 1853, for its repeal. Though a bill 
to this effect was unfavorably reported and refused engross- 
ment, the petitioners were favored in so far that free blacks in 
the employ of any white resident of Cecil county were free 
to return after an absence of not over twenty-four hours, for 
transacting business for their employers. And, three years 
later, the time of absence was lengthened to ten days, to all in 
regular employ in Cecil and Kent.' So the law remained. 

Attempts to secure admission or residence by special acts, 
met with varying results. One man tried in vain for leave to 
work in Maryland between April and November. The fisher- 
men of Cecil could not take the free blacks in their employ 
beyond the State lines during fishing seasons. A respectable 
colored minister of Annapolis — who paid taxes on property 
assessed at over five thousand dollars — asked in 1846 for an 
act to allow his children to visit him from time to time, and 
again in 1861, to allow his sons to return to Maryland, but 
both petitions seem to have remained with the committee. On 
the other hand, legal residence in Cecil county was given in 
1846 to a family of nine blacks, on the representation of a 
number of citizens of the county, that the father, ignorant of 
tiie laws of Maryland, had removed to Pennsylvania to seek 
employment, and being unsuccessful wished to return to his 
old home, lint each of the family had to give bond to the 
State in one hundred dollars, with surety, that they would not 
leave Cecil county — if found elsewhere, any justice could have 
the bond collceteil, half to the informer, half to the county. 
The steward of the Naval School at Annapolis, who had been 
for over iwi'uty years in tiie naval service, asked to be allowed, 
in 1847, to bring to Annapolis from Philadelphia his wife and 
chiltb-ni. rcrmission was given — as he had always maintained, 

' l8Jy, o38; 1863, 177; 1356, 161. 



The Free Negro. 181 

we read, a higli cliaracter for subordination and faithfulness in 
his various duties— on condition that the family should not 
reside out of Annapolis, and should remain so lonp; onlv as 
the father should be steward at the school. A free nygro of 
the District of Columbia obtained permission to visit his wife, 
a slave of Prince George's county, by giving bond with 
security in fifty dollars that he would not come there fur 
employment, that he would not stay over four days at a time, 
barring illness, and that he would behave well. A Wash- 
ington firm, which had a hotel and health resort in St. Mary's 
county, was allowed +o import their free negro servants, 
who had, however, to restrict their movements to the grounds 
of the establishment, and to leave at the close of the season. 
Two others of these occasional special acts are interesting in 
pointing out reasons for the general legislation.^ A colored 
family was allowed in 1856 to return to its old home iu 
Maryland, if the orphans' court of the county should be sat- 
isfied, on examination, that the parents were of good character 
and able to support their children. A free negro of Prince 
George's county had appointed by will as his executor his son, 
a resident of the District of Columbia, and leave was given the 
son to enter that county freely during the settlement of the 
estate, for a disposition was felt, we read, among the citizens 
of the county, from the good character the family had always 
borne, to extend such privileges to them as would not materially 
interfere with the policy of the State. The plain policy of the 
State was to free itself of the black population. 

These laws against the entrance of free blacks seem to have 
been enforced with some strictness. Early in 1842, a justice 
of Anne Arundel county sentenced five blacks, who had come 
there from Virginia five years before, to pay fifty dollars a 
week apiece for the two hundred and fifty and more weeks of 
their ^residence there, or be sold in default of fine and costs, 



iSee 1846, 65 ; 1847, 103; 1.849, 881 ; 1854, 60; 1856, 37, 229, 271 ; ISjS, 
364. 



182 The Negro in 31aryland. 

under the act of 1831. Appeal was taken to the county court, 
vhicli qiiaslied the writ of certiorari and remanded the case 
to the justice ; but the Court of Ai)peals— stating that the 
writ o^ certiorari should not liave been quashed — held that the 
act of 1830 superseded that of 1831, where it covered the same 
pn.uiul and gave penalties for the same offence, and thus all 
such cases should be tried before the courts and not before 
magistrates.' In this case, too, the blacks were not liable 
under the act of 1839, having come into Maryland before that 
time ; nor, as the court pointed out, could the informer sue 
for the fines, as an old law required such suits in general 
to be begtui within a year from the date of the offence. We 
find mention in the Baltimore papers, between 1850 and 1860, 
of ten arrests for entering the State. One of these was a 
respectable and well-to-do barber of Baltimore, who had been 
awav for several months, chiefly on account of his health, and 
was then l)rought before a justice under the act of 1831, to be 
dismissed in accordance with the opinion of the Court of 
Appeals. Bvit within a week after this, another justice of 
Baitiniore sentenced a free black woman to pay two hundred 
and fifty dollars for five weeks' stay in Maryland, and to be 
hold for the necessary term in default, evidently under the act 
of 1831 .'^ We notice the case of one negro fined twenty dollars 
by the court, by the act of 1839; and another black, com- 
iiiitt<-d to Cecil county jail to await court, left the State with- 
out fine or other hindrance — by climbing the jail wall. When 
it was ic|»reM'nted to the Assembly in Ihb'i, that efforts were 
alMiiit to be made to arrest a free negro who had formerly 
witrkwl on a \'irginia wood-boat plying to Talbot county, 
but had lived for several years in that county in the employ 
of a n ber of citizens who testified to his good character, a 



M2(;. & J., p. 32'.». 

* ilutiiiiiorf Sun, .Jan. Itli ami lOlli, ISofi. Wo notice that there was a 
Mnrk ill I5:»lliiii..rf jail in 1S3-J, and another in lS:iS, for entering tlie State 
Conir..rv to |;i\v. 



The Free Negi'o. 183 

special act was passed to give him legal residence and exemp- 
tion from the act of 1831. It is to be feared that some free 
blacks, who did not secure able counsel, sulfered from igno- 
rance on the part of magistrates of the decisions of the Court 
of Appeals. The act of 1839, in so far as it imposed a penalty 
of twenty dollars only for a first offence, was indeed, as the 
chief judge stated in 1842, a merciful modification of the old 
law of 1831.1 



Within the State, an orderly free black would be master of 
his movements without hindrance, in the communities where 
he was known, but beyond these he might be liable to annoy- 
ance and possibly to arrest and delay. Color created the pre- 
sumption that a man Avas a slave, and the burden of proof of 
freedom, by certificate of freedom or otherwise, rested on the 
black. We read in the Baltimore papers of one negro who 
was chased as a runaway, roughly handled and struck by 
officers, but was found to be free on examination at the police 
station ; and, again, how a man brought to Baltimore, and 
tried to sell to slave dealers, a good looking colored boy whom 
he found at Annapolis Junction and presumed to be a runaway, 
and how the boy spoiled the sale by taking to his heels, by 
being caught, being heard by a magistrate and dischai-ged as 
free.^ Suspected runaways were taken before magistrates to 
be discharged at once if found to be free — to be locked uj) and 
duly advertised otherwise for a reasonable time, at the end of 
which, if there were no reasons for presuming them to be 



' The majority report of the committee in the slaveholders' convention of 
1858 stated that it was believed that the general act apiiiiNt tlio r.liirn 
of free blacks to Maryland had not been enforced and was wholly inclli.icnt, 
but that the special and stringent law for Cecil, Kent and t^iicn Anne'H 
counties had recently been enforced. 

*Balti.nore Sun, May 23rd, 1853; June 2nd, 1859. The hoy then got 
work through the interest of the policeman who had cauglit him. 



184 The Negro in Maryland. 

slaves, they would be discharged by a judge of the circuit or 
nrpliaus' courts, and all fees would be paid by the county. 
W'iiile fears of such arrest or of kidnappers could not have 
troubled most free blacks, it is certain that, especially in times 
when insurrections were talked of and patrollers were more 
or less about, the customary salutation of a white to any 
strange and suspicious looking black : " Well, boy, whom do 
vou belong to !" sometimes ended in an unpleasant delay in 
the business or pleasure of a free Nace or Pompey. The act 
of 1838 forbidding the transportation of slaves without passes, 
made all colored persons liable to examination by officers of 
railwavs and steamers. Thus, a colored woman on one of the 
NN'est River steamers, without a pass or certificate of freedom, 
was arreste<l on suspicion at the instance of the captain, and 
committed, as it could not be shown that she was not a slave. 
Again, a colored boy on a Baltimore and Philadelphia train, 
who did not make satisfactory answers to the conductor, was 
hmught back and delivered to a magistrate.' 



( )n(' of the objects of the Maryland Abolition Society of 1789, 
an«l of the |)hilanthropi(' work of the Society of Friends, was 
the prevention of kidnapi)ing. In 1790, the penalty of three 
liiindre<i j)ouuds iiue was [)rovided for fraudulently carrying, 
or (fusing to be carried, from Maryland any black known to 
be free. The Friends, the Abolition Society, and sundry 
citizens of Kent and Caroline counties — which bordered on 
Delaware — asked for still more stringent laws, but the House 
eoMimitt<-e replied, that if oileuces were not always detected 
the fault was not in thi' law. After 1790, the penalty for the 
importation and sale ot" liec blacks was fixed at eight hundred 
dollars, or in default, lal)or on tlu' roads, afterwards imprison- 
iiieiit. for not ov<'r live years. There was the same penalty lor 



■ li.iitiiiK.rr .Sum, Jimo i'.rii, 1>H,")(); Sopt. Dtll, IH^S. 



The Free Negro. 185 

transporting them fraudulently from the State until 1800, 
when the act on crimes gave imprisonment between two and 
ten years for transporting or arresting with intent to transport 
a black known to be free. We find the Society of Friends 
and others asking for further legislation, in 1815, and again 
in 1816, when the grand jury of Baltimore county presented 
a memorial to the Assembly to the same effect. These efforts 
seem to have been directed against the transportation both of 
free negroes and of those to be free after a term of service. 
A lengthy bill was introduced in the House in 1816, to for- 
bid the purchase of any slaves for transportation, except 
under certain forms and conditions. Also, it ordered magis- 
trates to hold for the courts all parties suspected of fraudu- 
lent purchase, and to require the defendent to give special bail, 
should the black file a petition for freedom and institute a suit 
for false imprisonment. And, further, as there was repre- 
sented that negroes committed as runaways were sometimes 
free persons, and were prevented by imprisonment from pro- 
curing evidence of freedom, it provided that all negroes held 
as runaways and duly advertised, aud held then for a limited 
time after the notification of the reputed owners, should not 
be sold as heretofore, but should be set free, all costs being 
paid by the public. This bill practically failed to pass the 
House then, for these two vital clauses were lopped off; but 
the next Assembly passed a bill embodying its essential 
features, except the mention of suits for false imprisonment. 
Three memorials were read at that session against kidnai)pmg. 
The Senate passed the bill with one opposing vote only, hut 
there was considerable opposition in the House, directed pro- 
bably against the discharge of unclaimed runaways. The 
preamble to the bill states that servants and slaves had been 
sometimes removed by fraud from the State, and the children 
of free negroes sometimes kidnapped aud sold as slaves for 
life in distant places.' In 1824, the penalty of death was 



1 See House Journals. Journal of ISIG, 97, &c. Act of 1817, 112. Si-e 
Kunaways and Sale of Slaves. 



186 The Negro in Maryland. 

prescrihcil f-.r tlie nuirder of any person known to be free or 
entitled to freedom, committed in arresting such with the 
iiitnitioii of transportation beyond the State. There were 
.-(•v. nil motions for further legislation, with no result; and a 
bill to repeal the act of 1817 was left on the table.^ The 
files of Niles' Register and of the Baltimore papers, show 
what we might expect, that the laws and the stronger public 
opinion of all good citizens were not able to prevent kidnap- 
ping entirely. Niles say.<, in 1821, after the notice of a kid- 
napper just sent to the penitentiary for five years, that "this 
infernal business" was carried on to a great extent, owing, in 
his oi)ini(m, to ineffective laws; and again, in 1826, that a 
number of colored children had been stolen.^ This most 
aboujinable of all trades, he adds, had revived with scarcity 
of UKjney. V.'e find notice of several suspected kidnappers 
given over to the police by slave dealers in Baltimore. In 
IHOO, when the Baltimore police were making special efforts 
to execute the law, there were ten arrests at least for kidnap- 
ping. In several of these cases, the blacks kidnapped were of 
tlinse who had been sentenced to service for limited times by 
th(.' c«turts — a punishment which increased, surely, the oppor- 
tunities for abuses.^ 



By the Constitution of 1776 the right of suffrage was given 
to all freemen of age who held a certain amount of property. 
It is certain tliat some free negroes voted in the early yeare 
of the State. Ft»r instance, evidence was given in Baltimore 



'Houw JoiimnlK, 1822, 127; 1825, 260; 1845, 465; 1826, 355. 

•Sw .Vi7,-<i' RfgiMrr, 13, 80; 15, 110; 20, 303; 29, 419. 

•Koc liallimore Sun, 1840, Miirdi 28th, June 21st; 1858, June 25tli ; 
IHOO, Mhv ITtli, 21st, fic. One case nieiitioned by Niles is that of a free 
Mark who limi kidiiapiH-d, and probably Bold as slaves, throe free blacks. 
II.« wn« Kivcn ii fin.- of £300, ami 3 years at hard labor. {Niles' Register, 
CMoIht, 1818.) 



The Free Negro. 187 

county court, about 1810, that a certain free black of tliat 
county had voted at elections, and had been allowed to irive 
evidence in a case in which white persons were coneornah' 
But it was enacted in 1783 that no colored person freed there- 
after, nor the issue of such, should be allowed to vote, or to 
hold any office, or to give evidence against any white, or to 
enjoy any other rights of a freeraan than the possession of 
property and redress at law or equity for injury to ])crs()n or 
property. An amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 
1810, limited the right of suff'rage to whites. Free blacks 
enjoyed fully tlie right, ascribed to everyone by the Declara- 
tion of Rights, of petitioning the Legislature in an orderly 
manner for the redress of grievances. Most of the special 
acts passed in their favor were in answer to petitions, presented 
usually by the members from their counties, and there is every 
reason to believe from the Assembly journals, that the com- 
mittees on Colored Population gave due attention to these 
petitions. The Declaration of 1851 repeated the words of the 
Declaration of 1776, that no freeman should be deprived of 
life, liberty, or property, but by judgment of his peers or the 
law of the land — but added that this should not be construed 
to prevent the Legislature from passing such laws as it might 
deem fit, for the government and disposition of the free colored 
population.^ 



' 3 H. & J., 71. We hear of another free black who was also in the 
habit of voting, and did not know of the law of 1810 until his vote waa 
refused at the polls in Baltimore county, that year. It is said that when 
his vote was refused, he addressed the crowd about the polls "in a str.iin 
of true and passionate eloquence," which kept his audience in breathless 

attention. t tt i> r i v 

See the valuable memoir of Benj. Banneker, by J. H. h. LatroLc, l-xj. 

(Md. Hist. Soc. publications, 1845.) 

Mt is interesting to note that the House committee on Grievances, &c., 

reported to the House, in 1798, that they had found in the ja.l of Anne 



18g The Negro in Maryland. 

^Faiiy free negroes owned small houses and pieces of land, 
and some (jf the most indnstrious not a little personal property. 
Tiie acts of incorporation of some savings banks limited de- 
positors to white persons, others could receive from any 
jKM-sons. In Annapolis, for instance, several free blacks were 
depusitors at the savings bank, and one at least owned shares 
of the bank stock. The act of 1852, allowing the formation 
of homestead or bnilding, and of other associations, to promote 
economy and frngality among the people and an increase of the 
taxable property, expressly excluded free blacks. There were 
evidentlv doubts as to whether real estate could be held legally 
by blacks, or the descendants of blacks, manumitted after the 
act of 1831. In 1848, the chancellor held as void a devise 
of certain real estate to several negroes, by the will under 
which they were freed, as such frcedmen could not remain in 
the State on terras compatible with sure and unrestricted 
enjoyment of the property. Ten years later, however, the 
Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the circuit court 
for St. Mary's county, that the taking of real estate in trust 
for the benefit of manumitted blacks was not inconsistent with 
the ])olicy of the State. A devise of land, added the court, 
might j>romote this, indeed, by giving negroes the means to 
emigrate, if called on to do so by officers of the law ; nor would 
it give any rights not enjoyed by other free blacks.^ The act 
of 1H.31, as we know, was not executed. When a certain negro 
jM'titiniied in 1835 for leave to dispose of real estate to his 



Arundel county a negro claiming to be free, who had been committed by a 
juHti<-«' of piMice by an order not under seal and which did not specify the 
oflt-no — in Hhort, witiiout those forms and solemnities wliicii warrants 
kIk.uM hnv«', by the law, "to liave the effect of depriving a citizen of his 
|M-p><)h!il lib«Tly." Tiie committee advised the passage of a resolution, to 
onItT ihe lilui'k lo be brought bv writ of habeas corpus before a judge of the 
<MMi«Tnl (^.urt, lo l)c discharged or remanded, according to law. Tliis was 
Bib.piwl by a vote of 'J.")-21. Note act on habms corpus, 1798, 106. (House 
Jouriuil, Jnmiury iSih mul ooth, ITDit.) 

' Md. ( •bnn.Try, 1, UV) ; l'> Md., Hi. Wc li.ul propeif. IrUI iu trust for 



The Free Negro. 189 

children, the House committee on Grievances answered tliat 
the laws did not prevent free blacks from holding real estate, 
or from transmitting it to their legitimate issue. In 18.3G, 
when it must have been plain to many that voluntary emigra- 
tion was not likely to succeed, a member of the House moved 
an inquiry by the committee as to the expediency of forbidding 
free blacks to acquire or hold real estate, with the suggestion 
that two years at the utmost would be time for those already 
holding real estate to dispose of it. This was laid on the 
table. Two years later, a motion to the same effect wa.s 
evidently allowed in the Senate, but we find no further men- 
tion of the matter. A petition presented in 1849 by seventy- 
six citizens of Caroline county, for a law to allow free blacks 
to inherit and hold property, may have been signed as a pro- 
test against the recent decision of the chancellor, or else lor 
exemption for freedmen from the law of descent, which hin- 
dered transmission of property to children not born in lawful 
wedlock. The fact that the marriage of a slave was not rec- 
ognized at law, as well as the looseness of the marriage tie 
araons: the free blacks, would have caused the estates of some 
negroes to have devolved to the State. There are a dozen or 
more acts in the statute books, relinquishing the rights of the 
State in favor of colored families. For instance, a certain 
freeman died about 1832, leaving a house and land in Fred- 
erick county, and some personal property. His reputed and 
acknowledged wife, unable to furnish legal proof of marriage, 
was freed by special act from danger of having this forfeited, 
to the school fund of the county, in default of heirs. One 
act allowed eight colored families to inherit and enjoy the 
property of their respective fathers. By another, the property 
of a free negro was allowed to descend to his only child, sub- 
ject to right of dower of the wife.' 



1 1832 204; 1834, 183, 187 ; 1849, 475 ; 1856, 337 ; 1858, 75, 296, 351, Ac. 
There was a favorable report in the House, in 1860, on making the luw 
giving certain allowances to widows, apply to free negroes as to wliites. A 



190 The Negro in Maryland. 

^^^• have seen in the chapter on manumission that free 
negroes not infrequently owned as slaves their wives and chil- 
dren — whom they feared, perhaps, to manumit, lest the right 
to residence might be questioned. It would seem, also, that 
other free negroes owned and hired slaves, as did their white 
nei<,dil)(»rs. We hear of one free black, of Dorchester county, 
receiviui: payment for a slave, whom he had bought for a term 
of vears, antl who was sold out of the State for crime by the 
court. In 1827, a member for the same county had intro- 
duced a bill to forbid anyone owning slaves for life or a term 
of years, from hiring such to a free negro there. Kent and 
Somerset were ailded to Dorchester and, later, Worcester and 
Anne Arundel were added, and Kent struck out; and then 
thec<»mmittee on Grievances, ordered to inquire into the expe- 
diency of preventing free blacks from purcliasing slav^es under 
any circumstances, reported that any legislation on the subject 
was inexjH'dient.^ 



The law of evidence in the Code of 1860 was very simple, 
and based strictly on the color line ; colored persons, free or 
slave, cx>uld testify for or against colored, but not in any case 



regular marriage between free negroes was duly recognized, of course. We 
find two cjiscH in which colored men were brought before Baltimore city 
criniinul court for bigiuny, but were dismissed from lack of proof of second 
niarriagf. (Haltimore Sun, February 5th, ISoG; August 11th, 1860.) On 
tin- oiht-r haml, an indictment against a black for bastardy was quashed in 
llallimore county circuit court, the judge holding, after consultation with 
the Courl of Aj.peals, that the act of 1781, 13, against fornication, and other 
Bimilur iici«, did not apjily to negroes. (Baltimore Sun, .Jamiary ISth, 
lh.'>;{.) We find mention of a marriage license for blacks; and of an appli- 
cjition by u colored woman for divorce, to the city circuit court. 

' 1S,VJ. 1 l-J ; House Journal, lS-27, 11, 73, 358, 382. Persons having free 
tUck np|.renlice« were forbidden by 184G, 355, to allow them to remain in 
ll..- .-niploynu-nt or custody of free blacks. This may have been to prevent 
llirir rimuining ut home with their parents. 



The Free Negro. 191 

in which a white person was concerned. But tlie law liad not 
always been so simple, and the history of its growth is most 
significant. In 1717, there was enacted that no Indian or 
negro, slave or free, nor mulatto slave should be admitted as 
evidence before court or magistrate in any case in which a 
Christian white person was concerned. This was at a time 
when ship-load after ship-load of the rudest Africans were 
imported yearly, and it must have been long before many of 
them learned even the English language. But the law was 
not to protect the whites only, for these Indians and negroes 
were not allowed to testify against their fellows excoj)t — w here 
other evidence was lacking — in petty cases not punished by 
loss of life or member. Nor, apparently, could a slave testify 
against a free black. And further, while the child of a white 
man and a mulatto slave would be during life incapable of 
witnessino; ag-ainst a white, the child of a black man and a 
white woman — there were not a few cases of such oflf'spring 
— wouhl be so disqualified during the limited term, only, 
for which he was put to service. A free mulatto was good 
evidence against a white person. In short, the status was 
not dependent on color only. In 1751, as heinous felonies 
had been committed, the testimony of slaves was allowed 
against slaves accused of capital crimes, where there were 
pregnant circumstances to confirm it, in the judgment of the 
court. And slaves were always to be warned by the court 
of the severe corporal punishment to be given them, if they 
perjured themselves. The imported convicts, mostly felons 
from England, were at the same time declared good evidence 
against one another; as they had been encouraged to wicked- 
nesses, we read, by the fiict that they were not legal witnfss(>s. 
In 1792, the House of Delegates considered a hill to prevent 
stealing by free negroes, which provided, among other things, 
that any slave over fifteen years of age might testily to con- 
vict a free negro of illegal dealings with a slave; as tiicre had 
been great inducements for slaves to steal and dispose-of the 
goods to free negroes, who could be convicted by the testimony 



192 The Negro in 3Ianjland. 

of white persons only, who were seldom privy to such deal- 
ings. Tiiis clause was struck out by a vote of thirty to twenty- 
.soven. But nine years later, slaves were declared good evi- 
dence for or against any colored person on trial for stealing or 
fur dealing in stolen goods. A few years later, in 1808, the 
grand jury of Queen Anne's county asked the attention of the 
A.sscnibly to inconveniences which had arisen from the ina- 
bility of a free negro to testify against anotiier free negro iu 
capital cases; and it was therefore enacted that in all criminal 
cases any negro or mulatto, slave or free, could testify for or 
a<rainst any negro or mulatto, slave or free.^ To the House 
l)ili for the general act on negroes, of 1796, the Senate offered 
the amendment that no free colored person, free as descended 
from a free ancestor, nor the descendants of such freeman, 
.should be allowed to testify in favor of any slave petitioning 
for freedom. This amendment the House rejected by a vote 
of thirty to si.xteen, and requested the Senate to give up, 
as it would ojjcrate, said the message, to affect the compe- 
tency of witnesses born of free ancestors and entitled to the 
|)riviloge5 of citizens; and the credibility of such persons 
shouM rctit with the jury. TheSenate receded, but the act for- 
bade persons manumitted since 1783 to testify for petitioners for 
freedom. Since 1783, no new freedman could testify airainst 
a white person,^ Mulattoes, free as descending from free ances- 
tors, were .still good witnesses. 1'he Court of Appeals, in 
ISIO, sustained Jjaltimore county court — in its just ruling 
un«ler the act of 1717 — in refusing to allow a free black 
woman to totify in a case in which a Christian white was 
ctintvrned, although it was shown that her brother, a free 
blaek of that eoimty, luul once been allowed to testify, with- 



'Ilouftc Journal, IT'JU, 80, 98— tliis bill did not pass. ISOl, cli. 109; 
ISOM, 81. In IMo, tlio ait of 1728 was abolished, which gave to free mulatto 
woin.-n mill lo tlii-ir oIlsprinK by neKro slaves, the same penalties given to 
«liiu- wouKMi and lo iluir olispring by negroes. After 17%, colored chil- 
dren uf while woujen were no longer punished for their mother's crime. 

*S«? pngf 187. 



The Free Negro. 193 

out objection, in some similar case. But in 1814, the Court 
sustained Frederick county court, in a case on petition for 
freedom — in which a white was concerned to a considerable sum 
of course — in allowing the evidence of a free mulatto, whose 
mother, though a colored woman, was descended from a white 
woman. ^ In 1846, the religious distinction of the old act of 
1717, in favor of Christians, was wiped out; and all colored 
persons were disqualified in cases where whites were concerned. 
In 1856 and again in 1860, there were favorable reports from 
House committees for admitting "in certain cases" the testi- 
mony of blacks against whites. These cases were probably 
embodied in the provisions of a bill which, according to the 
newspapers, was advocated at the session of 1860, to admit 
the testimony of negroes, subject to ordinary rules of evidence, 
when whites were tried for enticing or aiding slaves to abscond, 
or for circulating "inflammatory" documents; and to allow 
the jury to convict on such evidence, when accompanied by 
proof of additional circumstances tending to confirm it.^ 

In the trial of a white man for the manslaughter of a black, 
before the circuit court for Baltimore county, in 1856, a wit- 
ness was about to give the declarations of the black after the 
assault, when the counsel for the prisoner objected to such 
testimony, as being virtually that of a black against a white. 
The court held that the declarations of a negro, when part 
of the res gestae of a case, were admissible as evidence, that it 
would be a most unjust theory, that the exclamation of any man 
when assaulted must be debarred from notice. Nor was the 
question a new one, for it was stated that the court for Balti- 
more county had in two previous cases admitted statements ot 
negroes when part of the res gestae.^ 

The Court of Appeals held, in 1820, in an appeal over a 
petition for freedom, that declarations of a colored person 



1 House Journal, 1796, 102, 110; act of 1796, 67 ; 3 H. & J., 71, 379. 

2 Baltimore Sun, Feb. 10th, 1860. 

3 Baltimore Sun, Dec. 18th and 19th, 1856. 

13 



194 The Negro in Maryland. 

from whom the petitioner derived his title to freedom, might 
be uso^l as evidence against the petitioner. The case in ques- 
tion, said the Court, sustaining the ruling of the county court, 
did not come within either the letter or spirit of the act of 
1717 on evidence.^ That law of evidence was evidently to 
prevent possible injury from incompetent or dangerous testi- 
mony, to the whites above all others. 

A free black of Somerset county asked leave of the Assem- 
bly, in 1823, to prove accounts against white persons; but the 
House committee deemed the prayer unreasonable. A free 
black of Anne Arundel, for instance, an industrious carpenter, 
who had undertaken large repairs on the farm buildings of a 
neighbor, found himself unable, wdien the neighbor died, to 
prove the accounts to the executor, and had to enlist the inter- 
e.st of a white man, who knew of the work done, to testify to 
his statements.^ 



There seems to have been some doubt as to whether a free 
negro eouhl maintain an action at law without first stating in 
his j)Ieadings, and proving, the fact of his freedom. When a 
colored man entered an action, in Baltimore city court of 
Common IMeas, in 1855, to recover wages as a seaman, and 
the defeinlaiit raised the question of his status, the court held 
that :ls he was colored, he could not maintain the action with- 
out f-howing that he was a freeman. The Court of Appeals 
decluicd in 1,S5S, that the words "free negro" were not essen- 
tial ill the averments of the pleadings, for an action to be 
maintained, ex(vpt in case of a petition for freedom ; the word 



'.') 11. .S: J., U. 

• I'tlitioiu-n* for frctMldiii were not allowed to make regular afTulavits to 
r«nii>v«- thfir raws. Nor could nuinumitted negroes, as we have seen, make 
•fliilnviiH, in railing on the courts to marsliall assets of their masters' estates. 
CJ n. A: .1.. Vl\ ■ V> M.I. L'7l; Md. Chan. I, 296.) 



The Free Negro. 107 

" negro " being enough to notify the opposite party of tlie fact 
of color, and thus to afford hira " an opportunity to show the 
condition of slavery, if such be the case, by pleading tliat dis- 
ability." The question, added the Court, is one of great 
practical importance, and all doubt should be removed. Tliore 
are but two cases in which, at law, a negro suffers a disquali- 
fication because of the presumption arising from his color — 
when brought forward as a witness in a case in which a white 
is concerned ; and where the question is his freedom vd non, 
when he must bear the burden of proof. From the earliest 
history of Maryland, free negroes have been allowed to sue in 
courts, as well as to hold both real and personal property ; 
and as long as they remain there could be no greater incentive 
to thrift and respectability than the protection of their earn- 
ings.^ The Court of Appeals also refused to allow a man who 
had treated a negro as a freeman in a lower court, to turn 
about and try to prove him a slave, on an appeal, so as to 
deprive him of a legal status in the higher court.^ 



Some of the English serving women imported early into 
the Colony, married negro slaves, and a law of 1664 gave pen- 
alties for " such shameful matches." The marriage of such 
women with free negroes was also soon forbidden — a.s soon 
probably as attention was called to the presence of free negroes. 
The master who allowed the marriage, and the minister or 



1 Baltimore Sun, July 9th, 1855; 12 Md., 450. This decision confirme.l 
the judgment of the circuit court for Dorchester. 

•7 Gill, 211, (1848). In a case (8 G. & J. 53) involving the status of a. 
colored man, in an appeal from an orphans' court, in l.s;5t), the Court of 
Appeals held that however it might be urged that the man wns from liis 
color presumably a slave, the facts that he had not been clain.e.l by an 
owner, that he had engaged on a voyage at sea as a saih.r an.l recovered 
wages in his own name, were sufficient to repel that presumption so far as 
to justify the courts in granting an administration. 



The Negro in Maryland. 

raafistrate who performed it, could each be fined ten thousand 
pounds of tobacco. This heavy fine dates from about — if not 
immediately after — the time of the marriage of an Irish ser- 
vant, brought over by the Calvert family, to a negro slave. 
After 1715 there was a fine of half that amount for the min- 
ister or magistrate who should marry with a white person any 
negro whatever or a mulatto slave. But a law of 1717 pro- 
vided that any white who should marry any colored person 
should serve for seven years, and that a free negro or mulatto 
inter-marrying with a white should become a slave for life — 
except mulattoes born of white women, who should serve seven 
years only. The fact that this old law is found in the Code 
of 1860, with this distinction in favor of certain mulattoes, 
and with the disposal of white culprits as servants for the 
benefit of the public schools, shows that public attention could 
have been seldom, if ever, called to it in the nineteenth century/ 



The militia act of 1777, like all previous acts, confined 
the service to whites. In the next few years, there were 
urgent demands for more troops for State and Continental 
service but recruits seem to have come forward slowly. In 
17.S0, all males, those previously exempt included, were made 
lial)le to draft, and able-bodied slaves were received as recruits 
with their own and their masters' consent. The following 
y»':ir, when one-fifth only of certain quotas called for months 
before for the Continental service had been raised, two extra 



' 1681 ; 1G92; 1715, cli. 44 ; 1717, 13 ; Code of 1860, Art. 30. The status 
of the freo mulatto uniler these laws is very interesting. We note that by 
tlie acts of ir.<J2 and 1715, a wiiite man who became the father of a colored 
child was lijiblo to serviie for seven years, if the mother was any slave or a 
free ne^ro. There were afterwards penalties only for white women allow- 
ing ihtniselves to be with child by colored persons, and for colored persons 
K< liin;; white women with child— the same penalties for slaves and free 
coloritl periiunii. 



The Free Negro. 107 

battalions were ordered to be added to the militia by ihe 
enlistment of volunteers and the conscription of all vatrrants — 
free males over sixteen years, idle and without family or 
apparent means of support. Free blacks could certainly have 
been enlisted under the act of 1780, but now we find them 
specially included — all freemen, not conscripted as vau:rauts, 
being enrolled in the militia and liable to draft, though negroes 
and mulattoes.^ A gentleman at Annapolis, at that time, 
wrote to Washington of the plan to raise seven hundred and 
fifty negroes, to be incorporated with the other troops ; but it 
is not probable that such large numbers were enlisteil. An 
official return of negroes in parts of the Continental army, in 
1778, gave sixty as belonging to the second Maryland Brigade, 
of whom one-fourth were sick or absent.^ The militia act 
of 1793 limits the service again to whites. 



The education of free negroes and of slaves was not for- 
bidden by law in Maryland, but the black was indebted for 
what he got to the interest of individuals or of such societies 
as the Society of Friends, Nevertheless, he was obliged, if 
he had property, to give his share of the assessments necessary, 
over and above the school fund of the State, for the support 
of the common school for white children. In 1860, there 
seems to have been one exception to this rule, Carroll <-uuiity, 
where these taxes were levied on the parents or guardians of 
school children.^ For some time, earlier, the free colored 
people of Cecil and Montgomery counties, too, had been si>e- 
ciallv exempted from school taxes. Sundry citizens of a district 
in Caroline county petitioned, in 1843, for exemption for tlie 



11715, 43; Oct., 1780; May, 1781. 

2 Sparks' Correspondence of tiie Revolution, June, 1781. Document 
quoted in Williams' Negro Race in America, I, 3(32. 
3 After 1852. 



liig The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

free )>lacks of their district, and a bill in answer was passed 
l)V the House, but was defeated in the Senate. The chairman 
of the House committee on Education reported a bill two 
years later, to exempt a certain free black of the same county, 
but this was rejected by the House/ 

The act of 1818, empowering the orphans' courts to bind 
out as api)rentices those free black children who might be 
neglected or not usefully enii)loyed by their parents, provided 
that the courts might require as a condition in any indenture 
that the child should be taught to read or write, or in lieu 
tlicreof that a sum of not over thirty dollars should be given 
in adtlition to the ordinary freedom dues. The Code of 1860 
stated that it should not be necessary in binding out colored 
children, by the orphans' court or trustees of poor, to require 
that any etlucation should be given them. A petition of 
thirty-two citizens of Frederick county, in 1858, for a law to 
pK.hibit free blacks from holding schools, was referred to a 
coiumittee, without result. Schools w^ere held, from the 
African Institute, with its hundred or more scholars, on Sara- 
t<>ga street, Baltimore, to the half dozen urchins learning their 
words under the counter of the little tobacco shop in Annapolis. 
The census of 1860 stated that thirteen hundred and fifty-live 
free black children were attcndino- school, in the State.^ 



»183«, 827; 1849, 221; House Journal, 1848, 401, 411,446; do., 1845, 
224, 2o3, 2o4. In si-vfral counties, free l)lacks who did not pay taxes to any 
utiiotint or were not hired out reguhuly to a taxpHyer, had to do some extra 
lalnir on tlit- roads. Tims, for two days, in Anne Arundel, Ciiarlcs, Kent, 
Moiiixonu-ry and Prinee George's eouulies; for one day more than nnas- 
iMi»4-<i whites ill Worcester, &e. 

•Tlic cciiMis gives tin- nuiidier of adults (over 20) who cannot read and 
write, lui ir),Hll( wliili-s and 'l\,i\m free hiacl<s. Tiie toti! white poiHllation 
»:ut owr half n million ; the total free hiaek was some 84,000. 

It IN Hiiiil on tin- hest authority that in Annapolis, early in this century, 
■ frt-c rtdored woman kept a little school, attended by some of the young 
»hil<' ehildren. 



The Free Negro. 199 

Tnmultiious meetings of slaves had early been forbidden, 
as we have seen ; one object being to guard against the spread 
of any possible spirit of disaffection or rebellion. By the act 
of 1806, any free negroes found by constables at noisy or sus- 
picious meetings of blacks, were to be taken before a mngis- 
trate, to be committed to jail unless they could give recogni- 
zance for good behavior and appearance at next court. If 
convicted then of breaking the laws of good order, thev were 
to be fined or imprisoned.^ Sixteen years after, a committee 
was appointed in the House of Delegates, to consider ti)e i)ro- 
priety of further legislation against undesirable meetings, but 
nothing seems to have been done. Three years later, again, 
the Governor's message spoke of the " pernicious tendency " 
of meetings of bodies of blacks for dissipation and riot ; and 
again the matter was referred to a committee without result. 
In 1827, a committee was appointed in the House, to bring 
in a bill to restrain blacks from roaminsr abroad or meeting; in 
numbers on Sundays ; but the matter was referred to the next 
Assembly. The act of 1806, mild in its provisions and milder 
still in its results, might have remained long on the statute 
books, had not the work of Nat. Turner and his handful of 
followers in Virginia cast suspicions over the movements of 
the blacks far and wide. By the act of 1831, all colored per- 
sons were forbidden to assemble or attend meetings for reli- 
gious purposes which were not conducted by a white licensed 
clergyman or by some respectable white of the neighl)<»rliood 
authorized by the clergyman. The white person had to be 
present to the close of the meeting, and any meeting held oth- 
erwise would be deemed tumultuous and might be broken u|) 
by a constable. If a constable of the neighborhood knew of 
such a meeting and did not disperse it, he could be fincil rr(»iii 



1 Any slave taken at a meeting and not beloiiRing to the owner of the 
place, got a good whipping. See 1806, 81. Leave was given in 1S01> lo 
bring in a bill to prevent free blacks and slaves from aUciuiliig musters or 
drills. 



200 The Negro in Maryland. 

five to twenty dollars. But the act did not interfere with 
relifrious exercises held bv slaves at home, with their masters' 
consent; while in Annajwlis and Baltimore — and the growing 
free black population in Baltimore made this an important 
(•xccpt ion— negroes could hold their services by themselves, 
up to the hour of ten at night, with written leave of a white 
license<l preacher.' In 1841, leave was given the committee 
to introduce a bill to prevent secret societies of colored per- 
sons. The next year, the judges of Baltimore city court com- 
municated to the Assembly the presentment by the grand jury 
of a number of associations of blacks in Baltimore for secret 
purposes. The grand jury of Baltimore county had similarly 
called the attention of the county court to such societies, pro- 
fessing to be Masonic. There Mas enacted accordingly that 
anv free cohtred person convicted of becoming, or of continu- 
ing to be, a member of any secret society whatever, whether 
it held its meetings in Maryland or without, should be deemed 
a felon, and be fined not less than fifty dollars — half to the 
infi)rmer, half to the State — or, in default, be sold for a term 
of servic-e sufficient to ])ay the fine. For a second offence, the 
j)enalty was sale out of the State as a slave for life, the pro- 
c-eeds to be divided as before, between the infi^rmer and the 
State. A slave would be sold out of the State, or given thirty- 
nine strij)e.s on bare back. For forming or attempting to form 
any such society, or association of blacks and whites, or for 
trying to induce any black to join such, or for allowing any 
8<K-ieties to meet on one's premises, there were the same fines or 
Bah? for a free l)laek. A white man who allowed a society to 
meet on his jyremises, was liable to fine of not less than five 
liun(h-e(l dollars or imprisonment for between five and ten 
yeiu-s ; whih' for taking part in the formation of thoni, there 
was the long tenn of iniprisonnient onlv. And all persons 



' 1R3I, 8j;;, 7. A iiiiml.»r ol liiizens of Frederick county petitioned, in 
lt'40 and itRiiin in 1K4">, for :i leju-al of the restrictions on religious meet- 
ing* ; but with no ^l>^ulus. 



The Free Negro. 201 

were authorized to disperse any assemblage of blacks whose 
proceedings and objects were not lawful, and to carry partici- 
pators before a magistrate, and peace officers could summon as 
large posses as were necessary. Any officer who neglected his 
duty could be fined not less than one hundred dollars, and any 
citizens who refused to serve on a posse, between tweiUy and 
a hundred dollars.^ In 1844, the committee on Colored Pop- 
ulation was ordered to enquire into the need of imposing still 
heavier penalties than those provided for constables who neg- 
lected to disperse unlawful meetings. In 1845, negro camp- 
meetings and other protracted out-door meetings were forbid- 
den, as being deemed nuisances to the public. In addition, 
all meetings of blacks for religious purposes, except those 
held at regular houses of worship under the provisions of 
1831, Avere forbidden — including evidently Baltimore city 
and Annapolis; but this was repealed at the next session. 
Negroes were still allowed, of course, to attend regular camj)- 
raeetings held by the whites.^ In most of the incorporated 
towns, free negroes wandering about the streets after certain 
hours of night — as, for instance, nine in winter and ten in 
summer — were liable, as slaves were, to be taken up and given 
a moderate whipping or be shut up till morning, by the con- 
stables, by virtue of local ordinances. But in Baltimore, free 
blacks were evidently subject in their movements, as whites 
were, to the single police rule of orderly behavior.^ 

It is easy to see here, again, that the demand for stringent 
laws was often a very local matter, and that the strictness 
with which they were executed depended much on variable 
public feeling. A goodly number of citizens of a certain dis- 
trict of Prince George's county petitioned the Assembly of 
1828 for the correction of evils arising from frequent assera- 



' 1842. 281. These acts were in force in 1860. 
»1845, 94; 1846, 166. 

3 See, for example, the law for Ea.ston, 1790, 14; tlie onlinanccs for An- 
napolis; and the powers of bailiffs in various towns, in Code of 1860. 



202 The Negro in Maryland. 

bla<res there, for the apparent purpose of religious worship, in 
a meeting-house used exclusively by negroes. They stated 
that the meetings were a nuisance to the neighborhood and 
tended to demoralize the slaves. The House committee on 
Grievances, to which this was referred, reported that the com- 
plaints were strictly local and had best be left to the members 
from Prince George's. A bill was accordingly introduced by 
a special committee, and finally passed, having first been re- 
jected by the Senate. Thus, after 1828,^ no colored persons 
could meet anywhere in that one district, under the pretext of 
or for the purpose of public worship — other than at services 
attended bv white citizens — except between the hours of seven 
in tlie morning and five in the afternoon, on Sundays, Christ- 
mas davs, Easter Mondays and Whit-Mondays. For meeting 
ilK-gally, slaves were liable to be whipped, and free blacks 
fined in moderate sums — for the benefit of Sunday-schools of 
the district. The fact that in 1853 the State's attorney for 
IJahimore county instructed the sheriff to summons a force 
siitlicicnt to arrest all slaves and free negroes who might there- 
alter be found at camp-meetings of blacks in that county, cre- 
ates the presumption that the act of 1815 had not been strictly 
enforced there." When the rumors were abroad in Talbot 
county, in April, 1855, that the negroes of the neighborhood 
planni'd a movement during the approaching Easter holidays, 
one object of the large and respectable meeting held at Eas- 
ton was to take precautionary measures — in particular, for 
.siippres.sing cllcctually the schools and meetings illegally held 
by blacks without supervision of whites. These meetings, 
says the Easton Gdzellc, have been held in Easton until they 
havi' lu-comc an annoyance, and it is time to have the laws 
enCorccd. Although, adds the report, there was probably no 
truth ill the rumors, it was deemed best to adoj)t a resolution 
asking the citizens to keep their servants at home during the 



' INL'H, IT)) ; (Vnii-of ISCO. 

• Uiiliiiuore Sun, August 'iDlli, 1853. 



The Free Negro. 203 

holidays.^ A certain justice of Baltimore county was calletl 
on, early in 1859, to try nine blacks for fighting at services in 
a colored church. He dismissed them, after a severe repri- 
mand and the explanation to them and the witnesses, some 
thirty blacks, of the laws forbidding blacks both to hold 
meetings for worship without the presence of a white, and to 
carry firearms.^ According to the papers of IMontgomery 
county, a thousand or more negroes met together there, one 
Sunday in July, 1860, for religious services, apparently, but 
the meeting was broken up by the sheriif. Such meetings, we 
read, were at one time quite frequent in that county, and were 
not looked on with much disfavor, but the work of abolition- 
ists had become so dangerous to slave interests, that meetings 
of negroes for any purpose had come to be opposed by almost 
everybody.^ 

The act of 1842 forbidding all societies of blacks had been 
in force only three years, when a bill passed the Senate to 
modify it for Baltimore city, on the representation of a large 
number of highly respectable citizens that it had operated with 
much hardship on many honest and industrious blacks, in 
keeping them from forming beneficial societies for the relief of 
the destitute of their race. The plan was that free blacks who 
bore good characters, and who paid taxes to the amount of 
five dollars, could form charitable societies, with written per- 
mits from the Mayor, given annually, with the proviso that 
all meetings should be inspected by police officers, to be sent 
by the Mayor. This bill, though favorably reported by the 
committee on Colored Population, and supported by the mem- 
bers from Baltimore city— only five in number, liowever— 
was rejected by the House by a vote of thirty-nine to nineta^i ; 
but was afterwards reconsidered and passed by thirty-seven to 
twenty-nine. We should note here— what will be entered into 



1 Easton Gazette, April 7th, 1855. 

2 Baltimore Sun, January 20th and 28th, 1859. 

'Kockville Sentinel, quoted in Baltimore Sun, August 6tli, 18G0. 



204 The Negro in Maryland. 

at leiiL'tli, later— that at this time tlie city of Baltimore was 
represented in the legislature by only one senator and not 
over six members, though it contained nearly a third of all the 
white-s and of all the free blacks in the State.^ 

It came to be the custom for negroes of Baltimore who wished 
to have anv assembly or entertainment at their houses, to 
procure from the Mayor's office a permit therefor, to be shown 
anv ))(»! iceman who might visit the scene of festivity. The 
dailv papers show that negro meetings, "cake-walks" and 
balls frequently ended in noise and disorder. On one occasion, 
in answer sent to a police station at three o'clock in the 
nutniing bv peace-loving neighbors, thirteen policemen arrested 
thirtv-three colored men and women engaged in a row at a 
dance. Again, we find thirty-six noisy dancers taken up, of 
wIkjim eighteen were bailed and the rest committed. One 
colored man was fined ten dollars by a justice for giving a 
ball without leave. On the other hand, this police regulation 
might sometimes be an annoyance to [)eaceable persons. One 
large gathering for entertainment at a colored church was 
broken uj) by the police, who thought the proceedings noisy, 
and thirtv (»r more blacks were taken to the station house. 



' .ViVm' Reyisler for 1S35 (vol. XLIX, 72) prints a letter from three of tlie 
folored clorgv of Haltiinore, representing their congregations. It pledges 
their Hup|>ort to the cause of good order among the blacks and of friendly 
relutionH with tlie whites, and states that they have no sympathy with any- 
tliinj,' wliich tended to disturl) those relations. It states, also, that the free 
blacks (if Haltirnore lind then 3.5 or 40 benevolent societies, numbering each 
from ',V) to l.'Kt mt-niliers, whose fun<ls were largely in the savings banks. 
TIktc wiTc many week-day and Snnday scliools, and ten churches. Many 
of the bbukH had purcliased liouscs and land, horses and wagons, and other 
|ir<»|M-ity, and tlie letter bore witness, also, to tiie respect sliown to tiie 
"unlcrly and dis<rcel" blacks by captains of boats and owners of public 
ciinvi-vancft*. Tlie colored |»cople, it said, always feel the greatest pressure 
from iinvtiiinK that disturlud the peace. 

AmitlitT letter, from the trustees of a colored church society of Baltimore, 
tit |i|(iri-<l the odortH that were being made by abolitionists — efforts which 
iimkf niorf prtcarioun tiie position of the free blacks and "rivet the fetter 
»(ili iii.,r.- < li^i-lv on the bluve." 



The Free Negro. 205 

But the permit from the Mayor was produced, and tliev \\\'re 
discharged as not guilty of any offence. Tiiere is need, added 
the paper, next day, of the exercise of a little more care and 
discretion by the police.^ There should be added that in 
respect to behavior at entertainments, as in many otiier ways, 
the lower classes of whites in Baltimore set no good example 
to the negroes. A certain colored man gave at his house, in 
the summer of 1858, a tea and fruit party, which was said to 
be orderly. Soon after midnight the police called to see his 
permit from the Mayor's office, and finding this without the 
counter-signature of the captain of the watch, put him in the 
watch-house, together with many of his guests. Released 
next morning by a magistrate on payment of fees, he brought 
suit against the city for thirty dollars damages, claiming that 
he had been told at the Mayor's office that the counter-signa- 
ture was not necessary. From a judgment in his favor by a 
magistrate's court the city appealed, but the court of Connnon 
Pleas held that the arrest of the black was illegal, as there was 
no law forbidding such meetings as the one in question or 
requiring permits for them, and custom could not allow the police 
to place restrictions on them. Within a few months the city 
government passed an ordinance forbidding any nninber of 
colored persons to meet for any purpose, other than religious 
worship or as beneficial societies, under the State laws, without 
written permission from the Mayor, and the presence, in addi- 
tion, of at least one white person. A black present at any 
meeting illegally held, could be fined between five and ten 
dollars.^ 

There were many churches for the blacks throughout the 
State, some of them under white pastors, others under blacks 



iSee Baltimore Sun, May 11th, 1859; October 3rd, ISGO; Janiinry Ist, 
1857 ; March 10th, 1854, &c. 

« Common Pleas, February, 1859; Baltimore Sun, September 4tli an.l 
6th, 1858, and February, 1859 ; city ordinance, 1860, 39. The bin. k men- 
tioned was awarded $1.00 and costs, over $8.00. 



206 The Negro in Maryland. 

licensed by the regular religious bodies, and some evidently 
in(lei)eMdent. Conferences of some of the colored church mem- 
bers were held, and the Baltimore paper speaks of one of 
these, which met in that city for a week in 1855, as a model 
of det-ornm, even for similar assemblages of those who made 
higher [)retensions. There were in Baltimore in 1847, at least 
tiiirtecn colored church societies, ten of which were Methodist. 
The membership of the Protestant colored bodies there in 
Ks.O'J, was nearly six thousand four hundred — about a quarter 
o{ the total free black population of the city.^ 



Most occupations, from the small farmer, or livery or inn- 
keeper, to the vendor of cakes in the markets, were followed 
by free blacks. But there were two which were forbidden 
tliem in the latter days of slaveholding — they could not be 
licrnsed as pcdUirs, nor run any vessel of any size. In 1833, 
a bill was introduced in the House, to prevent owners of 
vessels fntm allowing them to be navigated by negroes only. 
This was amended so as to except scows or lighters used on 
rivers or creeks, and was rejected by the Senate, in answer 
iM-rhaps to a certain black commanding a vessel in the Bay 
trade, who had petitioned for leave to pursue his occupation. 
Tw(j years later the matter w-as again under inquiry in the 
House. At the next session, 1836, was enacted that any 
vessel of the size required by government laws to be registered, 
worked in the waters of Maryland without a white captain 



'St-e rc|N)r(H of the various societies. African conference of the M. E. 
Chiinli, May, IS',.") {Sun, of May 8tli, &q.). When an address of an incen- 
«li:iry nature w:is announced to l>e given at Zion's Independent Chnrch in 
Halliiiiore, a Mia;;i>trate and several police attended and dispersed the 
luwtiny, iintliT authority of the act of 1831, as the church was not under 
\\\v control of, nor tlie preachers licensed by, any regular conference or 
r«-li((ioiii» Uxiy, and tlie exercises were conducted mostly by blacks (Balti- 
nmrr .Vun, July "JOth, iSoS). 



The Free Xegro. 207 

over eighteen years of age, would be forfeited — half to the 
informer, half to the State. On information nnder oath, a 
justice might seize the boat, summon the parties and try the 
case, and sell the boat at auction, unless the owner appealed. 
The preamble to the act declared that great inconvenience and 
injury had resulted from the navigation of vessels entirely hv 
negroes, by which a clandestine trade was carried on and 
slaves had found facilities for running away.* It is interest- 
ing in this connection to note that the House, in 1787, had 
struck out from a bill under consideration the provision that 
no slave, except pilots, should be allowed to manage any boat, 
over twenty feet keel, conveying goods which belonged to any 
one but the owner of the boat. J, In 1838 a free black asked 
leave to sail his own boat, but the House committee reported 
unfavorably. But, the year before, citizens of Baltimore and 
Anne Arundel counties had been specially exempted from the 
act of 1836, and so able to navigate their vessels by their 
slaves or by hired blacks only. A bill to repeal this exemp- 
tion was passed by the House in 1844, but defeated by the 
Senate; and not till nine years later still was it done away 
with.^ In 1856, a bill passed the Senate, without opposition, 
to allow two free blacks of Harford county to run their own 
vessel to and fro between Baltimore city and the Bush and 
Gunpowder rivers, but the House threw it out by a vote of 
forty-four to five; and the petition of another black, two years 
later, to run a vessel without a white on board, was leit on the 
table.^ In May, 1854, the Baltimore Sun, under the heading 
"Novel Action," stated that a schooner was condemned uiulcr 
the law of '36, and that the owner had appealed. And there 
is mention, in October, 1859, of the trial before a justice of a 
colored captain. 



1 1836, 150. , , 

n837, 23; Journal of 1844; 1853, 446. A bill was reportcl, the next 

year, to allow owners of vessels to employ colored men as cai.lams in cor- 

tain cases, but was not evidently considered. 
3 House Journal, 1856, 358, 445; 1858, 35. 



208 The Negro in Maryland. 

A l»ill was passed, in 1858, in answer to a petition from 
siindrv citizens of Ciiarles county, forbidding any colored 
person in Charles or Prince George's counties to keep or use 
any boat on the Potomac, without license, — from a master to 
a slave, from a justice of peace to a free black. To obtain 
such a license, a free black must get a written certificate of 
good character from two respectable landholders of the neigh- 
borhood ; and if any two landholders of the Potomac shore 
rwpiested in writing the suppression of the license, the justice 
was l)oiiiid to ,-iimiiion the black and hear the matter fairly. 
No license could i)e renewed when once forfeited. The pen- 
alty for using a boat without leave was a fine of from five to 
liltv dollars and costs, and loss of the boat, on conviction 
before a magistrate. A slave who crossed the Potomac or 
took a trip to the District of Columbia, without leave, could 
lx» given IVom ten to twenty lashes by order of the magistrate; 
and his boat was forfeited, unless the owner was a white citi- 
zen, and ignorant of its use.' 

Free negroes coidd sell licpiors and fermented drinks, with 
the customary license. But after 1831, licenses were granted 
to them by order of the coiu'ts only, not by clerks of court, as 
in the case of whites. The act of '31 urged the courts to exer- 
cise a sound discretion as to the continuance or withdrawal of 
licenses, and empowered them to require, if advisable, satisfac- 
tory securities from the blacks. In 1852, — in answer to sev- 
eral local petitions, one of which was signed by as many as 
one hundnMl and twenty-four citizens, — was passed, with little 
op|>osition in the House and none in the Senate, a bill by 
which free blacks of Somerset, Worcester and Anne Arundel 
counties \vcr<' forl)iddon to sell ardent spirits, and were re- 
quired to obtain licenses for the sale of all merchandise. 
Licen-es were to be gotten oidy by special order of the courts, 
on the re<-oMnneudation of not less than twelve respectable 
fn-^'hoMers ill the neighl)orhood in which the black proposed 



The Free Negro. 209 

to do business. Beside, no white person in partnership with 
a black could get any license, nor could a white cinj)l()y a 
free black as a clerk in any business, under penalty of five 
hundred dollars.^ In Annapolis, the thrifty black found no 
trouble in getting his recommendations, nor is it likclv that 
one lacked friends, elsewhere. In May, 18G(), a resident of 
Baltimore was indicted, under the act of '52, for employing 
as his clerk in a retail store in Annapolis a colored man of that 
city. On pleading guilty, before Anne Arundel circuit court, 
he was fined the five hundred dollars and costs — for the pay- 
ment of which, the father of the clerk, a prosperous and re- 
spected mulatto of Annapolis, became his surety.^ 

At the session of 1827, a memorial was presented the 
House from sundry citizens of Baltimore, for such legislation 
as would forbid colored persons there from obtaining licenses 
to keep hacks, carts or drays, as well as from driving such 
vehicles. The very next day was presented a counter-memo- 
rial from sundry merchants and citizens of Baltimore. The 
committee, consisting of the two members from Baltimore and 
one from Allegany, reported that such matters should be left 
to the city government, which would know best the special 
wants and interests of the city. And a considerable source of 
city revenue might be affected by any such prohibition, sug- 
gested the committee. In 1836, the committee on Colored 
Population was ordered to inquire into the expediency of 
requiring additional security from the blacks licensed as 



1 1831, 323 ; 1852, 288. House Journal, 1852, 92, 141, 318, 553. 619. The 
petition from Anne Arundel, with forty-four signatures, speaks of tlie serious 
injury inflicted on the honest industry of a large portion of our white fellow 
citizens by the presence of the free blacks, and of the utter destitution in 
which thousands of this anomalous class are plunged by idle liahits and 
vicious propensities. The idle should be hired out and the children 
apprenticed to learn useful arts and avocations before emigrating to Africa. 

''Baltimore San, May 5th, 1860. An act of 1827, to protect public wor- 
ship more effectually, forbade any negro to sell liquor or l)eer or cider 
within a mile of a camp-meeting, under penalty of a wiiii>ping, on conviction 
by a justice. The whipping could not be given also witiiin the mile cinl... 

14 



210 The Negro in Maryland. 

traders and inn-keepers, or of wltliholding licenses from them 
altojretlier. A stringent bill, evidently to prohibit licenses, 
which j)assed the House, four years later, was twice rejected 
by the Senate.' In 1837, the committee M^as ordered, on mo- 
tion of a member from Prince George's county, to consider 
the expediency of forbidding free negroes to pursue for a live- 
lihocxl any business, mechanic art or trade, in order to encour- 
age them to emigrate. Later in the session, the committee 
reported, tiirough the same member, a bill entitled an act to 
encourage the emigration of free negroes and to advance the 
interests of tradesmen, mechanics and other laboring persons. 
After some amendment, the bill was killed by striking out 
the enacting clause — though by a vote of thirty-eight to 
twenty-four only.^ In 1840, a member from Baltimore ob- 
tained leave to bring in a bill to prevent the employment of 
negroes in the State tobacco warehouses at Baltimore, but the 
bill, reported at the next session, was left on the table. In 
1844, two petitions came from divers citizens of Prince 
George's county — one to prohibit free black carpenters from 
working there, the other to impose a tax on free black me- 
(•hanics ; but the House committee reported adversely. Three 
years later, a memorial from a number of citizens of Balti- 
more for a law to prevent free blacks from huckstering hay 
or straw was referred, without result, to the committee on 
Ways and Means ; and no better fate seems to have met the 
jM-titions of a large number of citizens of Baltimore, in 1860, 
that fV«'(' blacks of that city be barred from pursuing any 
nuH-hanical braiidi of trade.^ The signers were said to be — 
wliat we should expect — white mechanics! 



'MoiiH.- .Iciiri.al, IS'JT, 111), 11).-,, 410; Senate Journal, 1840, 68, 147. 

' Ili.nm- .Journal, ISMT, 2'), 447, r)27. 

• lluiiM- Journiil, 1K44, L'")'.!, 2(11, 370; 1860, 309. The colored ship caulk- 
en. «.f I ill 111 mure seoni Id have met willi niiich injustice at tlie hands of 
Ihrir wliiif rivulK, in IH^H, the police being required to keep the peace. 
Hui thf pu|Mr luld.s liiat Iho winic disposition was shown the German caulk- 
er* who hnccucdcil Kome of the blacks. See Baltimore Sun, 1858, May 18th, 



The Free Negro. 211 

Those of the free blacks who went into business anti were 
unfortunate, or otherwise got into hopeless debt, had appa- 
rently the benefit of the insolvent laws as fully as their white 
neighbors. Several citizens of Caroline county petitioned in 
1829, for a law to prevent negroes from taking those benefits, 
but in vain ; and the petition of some citizens of Dorchester, in 
1858, for sale of free blacks for debts of their own making, 
was as ineffectual. Two years later, when a similar petition 
was received from Anne Arundel, leave was given the com- 
mittee on Colored Population to bring in a bill for the sale of 
free blacks for debt in certain cases, but no further action seems 
to have been taken. ^ 

As early as 1792 an attempt was made to pass a bill to pre- 
vent free blacks from stealing and selling stolen goods. In 
1805, a bill to prevent them from selling corn, wheat, tobacco 
or other articles, without a license for the purpose from a 
justice, passed the House, after an attempt to refer it to the 
next Assembly, by a margin of three votes only. As finally 
amended, evidently by the Senate, it required a certificate of 
good character, under hand and seal of a justice of the county, 
for the sale of any corn, wheat and tobacco oidy. Such a license 
should be good for one year, and the black who sold these 
articles without it, was liable to a fine of five dollars. Any 
purchaser became liable to twice that sum. 'i'he preamble to 
the act states that much inconvenience had been felt from the 
sale by free blacks, as the product of their labor, of corn, 
wheat and tobacco received from slaves. Two years later a 



June 9th, July 5th and 22nd; 1859, June 28th. We may note, in passinjr, 
that an act of 1811 (ch. 100) on county surveyors, required chain and pole 
carriers to he free white males over 21 years. And the sale of lottery 
tickets was forbidden (1856, 195) to colored persons or minors, doubtlew 
to protect them against fraud. 

1 House Journals, 1829, 487 ; 1860, 44, 192; Acts of 1822, ch. 185. The 
Commissioners of Insolvency discharged in 1834, for instance, 140 wliiles 
and 17 free blacks; in 1835, 134 whites and 30 blacks, &c. See Baltimore 
Jail Eeports. 



212 The Negro in Maryland. 

supplonipntary and more stringent bill was brought in ; pro- 
vi<iiIlL^ in part, that the certificate from the justice should 
.siH-cify the quantities of corn, wheat and tobacco which might 
t>e sold— as estimated from a written statement of two respecta- 
ble neighbors of the black, of the probable amount which his 
lands could produce during the year— and that every purchaser 
shoidd endorse on the certificate the quantity of his purchase, 
under penalty of five dollars. This bill, after consideration, was 
defeatcil Ijy thirty-three to twenty ^\ In 1825, there was enacted 
that no one, under penalty of one hundred dollars, should buy 
of anv free black any quantity of tobacco in transfer or parcels, 
uidess the black produced at the time a certificate from a 
justii^ of the county giving the quantity and quality of the 
tobacco. And a certificate could be gotten only on proof of a 
resjK'ctable citizen of the neighborhood that the black had 
come honestly by the goods, and on payment of twenty-five 
fvnts.- The act of 1831, which was permanent in this respect, 
provided that no one should purchase from any colored person 
anv l)aei»i). ])()rk, beef, mutton, corn, wheat, tobacco, rye or 
oats, unless the blacks had a permit — in case of a free black, 
from a justice or from three respectable persons of his neighbor- 
hinA, that he was believed to have acquired the goods honestly. 
The |)eiialty was a fine from the purchaser of five dollars or a 
ftuni equal to the value of the goods, should they be worth more 
— half to the informer and half to the county.^ By act of 
1H42, a free black convicted of dealing in stolen goods should be 
S4»l<i out of the State for not less than five nor more than ten 
ye:ii>' service, and be forbidden ever to return, under penalty of 
the law. Half the proceeds of the sale went to the informer.* 

' Huum; Journal, 1S05, 17, 04, 80, 98, ch. 80; 1807, 19, 28, 36. 

•IS'iri, 199. 

'1831, 1123, 9. Slaves liad to liavc a iicriiiit from tlieir masters or over- 
iMcn.. Tlu- iiUfMlioii was ruistd without result in the House in 1844, as to 
whfiluT frr<- hhuks hIiouUI bo forliiililen to ship on vessels any produce 
without |M-rniil)t from jusliit-s. 

♦ A Hlavc wah sold out for life. 1842, '279. This act appears to have been 
in fortf uiuil ISGO. Sec Crimes ami I'luushments of Free Blacks. 



The Free Negro. 213 

The act of 1831 forbade also, under the same pcnahy, the 
sale by anyone of ardent spirits to any black wlio had nut a 
permit — in the case of a free black, from a justice of peace of 
the county in which the black lived, and directed to the seller. 
At the session of 1832, the statement was made by a memU-r 
from Dorchester county, which had a large free black as \vell 
as slave population, that this provision of the law had been in 
its practical effect, as was manifest to every person who had 
given the slightest attention to it, " a complete and entire 
failure." His motion for an inquiry into the matter and for 
further measures was adopted ; but nothing was reported then. 
A bill to repeal that provision of the act of '31, reported at the 
following session, was left on the table.^ 

The Assembly of 1817 passed a bill entitled, an act for the 
better protection of slaveholders in Calvert, Anne Arundel and 
St. Mary's counties. Its provisions applied to those countieg 
only, and exempted travelers and blacks emi)loyed as wag- 
oners. No retailer or distiller of liquors was to allow any col- 
ored person, except servants or slaves with proper permits, to 
be on the premises where liquors were sold, between sunset and 
sunrise. The penalty was fifty dollars, half to the informer, 
and imprisonment for not over three months, in default. And 
the fact that a black w^as on the premises after sunset was suffi- 
cient to convict the proprietor, unless he could prove igno- 
rance of it on the part of himself or his agent, or that all 
possible means had been taken to eject the black. And no 
one could receive any goods whatever from any black wh(» did 
not hold a permit from a justice, under the same penalty of 
fifty dollars fine or the jail.=^ This bill had first been rejected 
by the House, but was passed on reconsideration. At tlie 
next session came a vigorous appeal from the citizens of 
Annapolis, seconded by the members of the House from Anne 



1 House Journal, 1832, 55; 1833, 110, 197. 

2 This is evidently tl.e meaning of Section 5 (1817, 227), the peraiil to 
be under 1805, afterwards 1831. 



214 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

Arurultl, to exempt Annapolis from the act. A bill for that 
piirpoH- (luickly i)assed the House, but was rejected by the 
Senate. Two weeks later, the House requested the Senate to 
ret-onsider its action, stating that the bill was desired by the 
citizens of Annapolis "with an unanimity of voice seldom 
erpiallcd ;" but the Upper House not only adhered to its first 
decision, Ijut refused to appoint a committee of conference on 
the matter.' But at the same session, the act was extended to 
Prince George's, Somerset, Dorchester, Charles and Talbot 
counties, with the addition that no liquor should be sold either 
on Sunday or after sunset, to any free black, or to any 
slave without leave from his employer.^ The next year, 
another petition was received from Annapolis, and a bill was 
finally ])assed to exempt that city from the restrictions as to 
hari)oring blacks, so that retailers and distillers should be 
governed in that respect by city ordinances only, but keeping 
the fine of fifly dollars or the jail for buying unlawfully from 
a black. The entire act had already been repealed, early in 
the session, for Talbot and Dorchester counties. Four years 
later it was re-enacted for Dorchester, only to be done away 
at the next session, in answer to a protest from sundry citizens. 
A bill to repeal it for Prince George's county, in 1824, was 
defeated. It is to be found in the Code of 1860, in force iu 
the other counties mentioned, except Somerset.^ More rigor- 
ous provisions still against the harboring of blacks by liquor 
dc:der8, were enacted in 1854 for Anne Arundel, Calvert, 
Charles, Howard, Prince George's, Saint Mary's and Somerset 
cutinties, but were repealed two years later.'' A bill was intro- 
<liii-<-(l ill (he House, in 1827, bv a committee of two members 



'Tlic cliiinct^t of this bill may have been injured by a slight passage at 
nriiin U-twcen llie two Houses, the House having reminded the Senate that 
the bill had been kept in the Senate fur a month l)eforo being considered. 
IIi.uiH- Journal, 181S, '.J8, GO, 82, 8'), iS:c. 

' 1818, 184. The art of 1817 simply r()rel)ade tlie harl)oring of blacks. 

•1810, 77, 18; 18-j:j. 15; 1821, 57. ' House Journal, 1824, 141. 

*lh.-,J, 101; IS.-.C, <J<J. 



The Free Negro. 21 o 

from Anne Arundel county and one from Annapolis, to reg- 
ulate marketing by blacks in that county and city, which i)r()- 
vided a penalty of five dollars only against persons dealing 
with blacks without the proper license. This passed tlie 
House by thirty-six to twenty one — seven members calling for 
the yeas and nays — but was unfavorably reported and rejected 
in the Senate.^ For some time, by an act of 1818, it was not 
lawful for anyone in Kent county to sell liquor to, or trade in 
any goods with, any black, between sunset and sunrise, un- 
less the black had a permit — if a free black, a certificate of 
good character and special permit from two justices of the 
county. Such permits were to be recorded and were valid for 
a year. A person who dealt with a black otherwise was liable 
to forty dollars fine or, in default, not over three months in 
jail, and a freeman who counterfeited a certificate was liable to 
six months. Innkeepers could still entertain blacks who were 
passing through the county, and dealings in markets at the 
lawful hours were not included.^ After 1858, all persons, 
whether licensed or not, were forbidden to sell or give any 
liquor, within the city of Annapolis or its neighborhood, to 
any minor or slave without a permit from the parent or owner, 
or to any free black who did not have a written order from a 
physician or a certificate from three respectable freeholders of 
the city, stating that he was of good habits. The penalty for 
a first offence was from fifty to two hundred dollars, and 
double that for a second — half to the informer, half t(t tlic 
State. And permits must be dated, and were good only for 
two days from the date.^ The license system of the act of 
1831, by Avhich the free black must get a permit from a 
justice in order to buy liquor, may or may not have been 
a complete and utter fiiilure, as the member from Dorchester 
said it was, in the counties ; but it certainly proved to be such 



1 House Journal, 1827, 78, 252. 

« 1818, 170. 

» 1858, 55. In default, there was the jail. 



216 The Negro in Maryland, 

in Baltimore, the courts holding that the act did not apply to 
the city, through lack of precision in wording. Several liquor 
dealers were fined by justices, in 1855, for violating the act, 
l.iii the court of common pleas stated, on appeal, that the act 
had been held to be inapplicable to the city, that all action 
under it had been suppressed, and that to try to enforce it 
would be as unjust as ex post facto legislation.^ 



The House of Delegates, in 1805, referred to a committee 
a petition fi-om some residents of Harford county for a law to 
limit the number of dogs which any family could keep, and 
to forbid all negroes to keep any dogs. The next session, 
came another petition from Harford, that negroes might be 
barred IVom keeping dogs and guns. A bill was accordingly 
pa<s('<l — Allegany county being first exempted and then in- 
cluded, by amendments — allowing a free black to keep one 
dog only, by a yearly license from a justice, and making any 
free black who should go abroad with any fire-arm, liable to 
forfeit the same to an informer, and to pay all costs, unless he 
had :i certificate from a justice, renewable yearly, that he was 
i\n orderly and peaceable j)erson. Slaves could not keep dogs; 
and they had long been forbidden to carrv fire-arms off their 
master's estate without leave.^ Efforts for further and evi- 



'The city counsellor also stated, on inquiry from the council, that the 
«-<iriMir«tion had no jMJwer, under the existing laws, to prohibit the sale of 
Tuiuur to free negroes. Court of common pleas, reported in the Baltimore 
Suu, March until and 30th, 1855. 

The courts were empowered to revoke any licenses, ordinarily, when 
c«irn|.iaieits were made a;,'ainsl the holders by the grand jury. But acts of 
IH-n CiTH) and 1S45 (131, 2S1) empowered the courts for Anne Arundel, 
Calvert, Howard and Prince Cieitrge's, to e.\amine into the case of anyone 
holdiuK a license, on complaint of (me inhabitant of Maryland— except in 
CalvtTt, where three residents must complain — and to revoke the license, 
if the n«vuMH! were fomi.l guilty of dealing ludawfully witli blacks. 

' 1h(m; >>1 • 171.-, .(t. 



The Free Negro. 217 

dently more stringent legislation were made from timo to 
time, and in 1824, free blacks were absolutely forbiildtn to 
carry fire-arms. The next year, in answer to a petition from 
Kent, to restore the privileges under certain conditions to the 
free blacks of that county, the House committee rejiortcd that 
they had been under the impression for some time, as these 
intelligent and respectable petitioners then were, that such 
privileges might be allowed under careful provisions, but had 
concluded that action was not then advisable. Several years 
later the House concurred again in a similar unfavorable re- 
port from the committee on Grievances.^ The restrictions were 
evidently directed chiefly against injury to sheep and other 
farm property. By the act of 1831, free blacks could carry 
fire-arms, if they could obtain licenses from the courts. These 
licenses were to be renewed yearly, and could be withdrawn 
at any time by the court or by any one judge. The right to 
carry powder or lead was included; and a black who might 
be convicted by a justice of carrying arms or ammunition 
without leave, had to forfeit such to the informer and j)ay 
costs; and for a second offence, to be subject to ])unishment 
for a felony, or be whij)ped. And the sale of gunpowder or 
shot or lead to a free black was prohibited, under fine, unless 
he had a permit from a justice, directed specially to the 
seller.^ At the next session, there was added that any fire- 
arras taken already and not forfeited to the informci-, should 
be sold by the officers, and the proceeds, after expenses, be 
given the blacks. We find mention in the paper in March, 
1859, of the arrest for examination of two blacks, coming to 
Baltimore in a Pliiladelphia train, with a gun. After the 
John Brown attack on Harper's Ferry, the courts in several 
of the lower counties, with large slave populations, withdrew 



M824, 203 ; House Journal, 1825, 241 ; 1830, 198, 222. 

M831, 323. A slave had to have a permit from his omi)loyer. This 
provision, like that against the sale of liquor to hlaoks, could not have bcvn 
enforced in Baltimore city. See above. 



218 The Negro in Maryland. 

all licenses for arms. In many places, search was made for 
fii-e-arms on the premises of blacks.^ In 1838 and again in 
1852, petitions were sent the Assembly, in vain, from Som- 
erset county — one bearing the names of one hundred and one 
voters — to protect the inhabitants thereof from the evil conse- 
<inences of allowing negroes to keep dogs, — but the orderly 
black still kept his one dog, if he had a justice's license. 
A white could keep as many dogs as he wished, but those 
dogs who were complained of for killing sheep, had to be 
killed.^ 



By the act of 1 796 on negroes, " any free negro, mulatto or 
other person," found by a magistrate, on examination, to be 
living idly, without visible means of support, could be put 
under bond of not over thirty dollars for good behavior, or 
in default, be ordered to leave Maryland within five days. 
For refusing to go, or returning within six months, the va- 
grant could be committed to jail. In this case, if prison 
charges were not paid within twenty days, he could be sold 
by the sheriff, with the approval of any two justices of the 
county, to serve for not over six months, the balance of pro- 
ceeds, after charges were paid, to go to the county.^ These 
provisions are repeated in the act of 1825 — but for vagrant 
free culDrcd persons only; and fifteen days instead of five were 



' Haltirnore Sun, Doc. 12tli, 17th and 23rd, 1S59. Executive messages. 

' House Journal, 1H38, 22S. See Code of 1860, article on sheep. An act 
of IH.j-l, to protect sheep, put a lax on all dogs in Kent county, outside of 
tliu towHH, and forbade negroes to keep any bitches there. 

'See aciH of 17915, 30, and 1797, 5G, giving powers to Annapolis and 
(JcorKftown to Hiippross vagrants. In Annapolis, by a by-law of 1797, any 
Itrriton who oiiild not give good account of himself and of his means of live- 
lihcMMl could lie put under bond, or committed in default; and then, in lack 
of nicnnN to jmy prison fees, might be sold in the same way for not over four 
iiionlliH, in the discretion of the mavor. 



The Free Negro. 219 

given, before banishment, with the important proviso that the 
black should not be compelled to go if, within that time, he 
hired himself for not less than three months to some respon- 
sible citizen. He might also appeal from the decision of the 
justice to the county court, ou giving reasonable security for 
appearance and prosecution. Old and infirm free blacks who 
could not labor for a living were to be cared for by the cjun- 
ties. Constables were ordered to take special oath to take up 
vagrant blacks and their neglected children. By the act of 
1839, the magistrate courts, — or where there were none, the 
orphans' courts, — "were to summon all necessary witnesses for 
the examination of any free black arrested as a vagrant. If 
found to be without the necessary means of support and not 
of good and industrious habits, he, or she, would be sold 
at auction as a slave for the current year. A bond, with 
security, was then given the black for the payment to him, 
at the end of his service, of the price paid, less certain fixed 
charges. The purchaser was also ordered to give him good 
and sufficient food, lodging and clothing. But if, within 
ten days from the end of the term, the black did not leave 
Maryland, or hire himself out to some respectable white, to 
serve as a slave for a year, he would be again sold by the 
courts, and so on, yearly.^ So the law remained, save that 
after 1842 jurisdiction under the act was given also to justices 
of peace. 

The children of lazy and worthless or vagrant free negroes 
could be bound out as apprentices in the same way that the 
children of pauper or vagrant whites were bound. In 1818, 
a bill to empower the orphans' courts to bind out, in their 
discretion, those free black children who were not at service or 
not learning a trade, passed tlie House of Delegates by a small 
majority, and was amended by the Senate so as to exempt 
those also who were employed in the services of their parents. 



11796, 67, m) ; 1825, 161 ; 1839, 38; 1842, 281. 

n793, 45, and 1808, 54; 1818, 189, House Journal, 109, 110; 1839, 3.). 



220 The Negro in 3Iarylnnd. 

The terms and conditions provided for the idle and neglected 
who were bound out, were those in use for whites, save that a 
female might be bound to eighteen instead of sixteen years, 
ami that the courts might require, in place of the customary 
instruction in reading and writing, an extra freedom due of 
not over thirty dollars. As with whites, the wishes of the 
parents were to be consulted in the choice of the masters, as 
far as {wssible. After 1839, the orphans' courts could bind 
out any fri'C black children whose parents had not the means 
to sujjport them and were not willing to care for them and 
keep them honestly employed, so as to learn habits of indus- 
try. As to masters, the choice of the parents — or of the chil- 
dren, if firplians — was to be consulted as far as possible. An 
api)rentice could be transferred to another master, if in the 
sjime county, and if the court approved. And runaway ap- 
prentices might be adjudged to serve additional time, as was 
done with whites, or might be sold for the balance of the 
term to anyone in the State, if the courts were satisfied that 
they had not l)eon induced to run away by ill-treatment or 
fraud on the master's part. A special act for Harford county, 
— which creates the presumption that in that county, at least, 
tlic law had been ill enforced, — made any constable or magis- 
trate who failed to execute the law, when called on, liable to 
be turned out of office and fined. Persons holding apprentices 
were forbidden to allow them to remain in the custody or em- 
ployment of free blacks. Throughout the State, constables 
Nvere entitleil to a fee of two dollars from the master to whom 
u black child was bound, for bringing the child before the 
c<iurt. \n several counties, after 1856, the courts were em- 
powered, In their discretion, to require masters to give addi- 
ti(»nal free<lom dues to black apprentices and to secure reason- 
able sums also to their parents, as — so reads the preamble — 
free black children were sometimes bound out while those 
who niiscd tin 111 were left in poverty, and as it was but just 
that the services of black apprentices, who had become valu- 
able tti (iirmer.s and others, should be compensated in certain 



The Free Negro. 221 

cases.^ White children, of course, Avere frequently l)ouncl out, 
especially orphans, children of paupers, and those committed 
to the House of Refuge and other institutions. 

We find mention in the papers of several sales of vagrant 
free blacks in the counties. One constable, in Caroline county, 
was reported to have brought thirteen before the orpiuuis' 
court, of whom several were sold for the rest of the vear, and 
the children were bound out.^ The punishment for vagrant 
and vagabond whites was usually a short term in the alms- 
house or jail. In Baltimore city, by authority of special acts, 
"any person " found to be idle, without visible means of sup- 
port, a vagrant, a beggar or disorderly person, was to be bound 
out, or put in the House of Refuge, or to be sent to the alms- 
house — after 1854, for not over two months for the first 
offence, and never for more than six months. The number of 
vagrants thus committed by magistrates to the almshouse of 
Baltimore city and county in 1853, for instance, was two hun- 
dred and thirty whites and thirty-seven blacks; in 1854, two 
hundred and sixty-nine whites and thirty-nine blacks. After 
greater efforts had been made to put down rowdyism and 
vagabondism in Baltimore, the number of white vagrants rose, 
in 1857, to over four hundred, and in 1858, to over five hun- 
dred, while that of the blacks remained under fifty. The 
total number of blacks — vagrants, paupers, sick — in the alms- 
house in January, 1853, was one hundred and thirty- two to 
five hundred and eighty-five whites; in January, 1 Sol, one 
hundred and twenty-two to six hundred and forty-eight whites; 
in January, 1857 and 1858, the proportion of blacks was less 
— it may have been on the average, for several years, about 
one black to five whites. In Baltiuiore city and county 



11846, 355. 1856, 87, for Caroline, Kent, Somerset and Worcester. There 
were some diflerences in the different counties in the bindin<,' out of ii|>- 
prentices, but the orphans' courts had general oversiglit, everywhere. In 
Worcester and Somerset counties, free bhick apprentices niiwht be Mreil 
out, by leave of the courts, for not less than a year. 1856, 78; 1860, 75. 

2 Denton Journal, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, July 31st, 1855. 



222 The Negro in Maryland. 

together there was, in the same round numbers, about one free 
black to seven whites.^ 

In 183G, the inquiry was made — evidently without answer 
— in the Senate, as to the expediency of compelling free blacks 
of the laboring class to hire themselves out by the year. The 
House committee reported, the next year, in reply to the sug- 
gestion of a member from Calvert county that all free blacks 
be forced to labor by the year, that such a measure would be 
at war with all preconceived opinions of propriety, as it would 
bring the free blacks in direct contact with the slaves — a state 
of things to be carefully avoided.^ In 1845, a bill was intro- 
duced in the House, to compel the free blacks of Prince 
George's County, capable of labor, to hire out by the year. 
Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's, all large slaveholding 
counties, were added, but the bill was rejected by the Senate. 
Two years later, leave was given for a bill to better the condi- 
tion of the free blacks in Prince George's, but we know noth- 
ing of the plans proposed. In 1852, the House committee 
was ordered to report a bill to enforce the provisions of the 
several acts of Assembly for the suppression of vagrancy 
among the blacks. There is mention, at that session, of a bill 
for "the government, regulation and disposition" of the free 



' The alnisliouse was for the city and county. 

We i»re.sijinc that idle or vagrant free blacks were not — certainly not as 
a rule — sold in Baltimore under the act of 1S39, from the fact of these com- 
niilments under the acts of 1818, 169, and 1S54, IIG, for Baltimore, and as 
we have not seen mention of any sale in the daily papers from 1850-lSGO. 
The chanKi' in proportion between white and black inmates of the alms- 
house, and between whites and blacks committed to it as vagrants, may be 
«hif to tin- fail tiiat efllirts were made to enforce the laws, and — if we may 
U-lievf all reports of that time — the vast majority of the rowdies and dis- 
ordrrly persons in Baltimore were whites. See the papers, the messages of 
the mayor, iw in IS.jU anil ISoS, and the reports of the marshal of police. 
ThuH, of 1()0;{ piTsons arrested for violations of law in May, 1859, 907 were 
while and 1 Ki colored. Of o;{7 police " lodgers," the next month, only 48 
vnn- black. 

'Houm: Journnl, 1837, 108, 173. 



The Free Negro. 223 

blacks, which was referred to the next Assembly. It seems 
from what is said of its contents, to have given means for tlie 
stricter binding out of free blacks, and to have forbidden man- 
umission except on condition of emigration to Africa. Brou*^^ 
up in the House, at the next session accordingly, it was tiiree 
times rejected.^ At the same session, a bill to furnish a rem- 
edy against free blacks who might quit service after hiring 
out, was first rejected by thirty-six to eight, was reconsidered 
and passed by forty to ten, and then finally rejected again. 
At the next session, 1854, the same or a similar bill was 
rejected by twenty-six to nineteen, was then reconsidered and 
rejected by twenty-eight to twenty, and was finally passed by 
forty-one to nineteen. In the Senate, it M-as first rejected by 
eight to four, and afterwards passed without opposition. This 
act declared guilty of misdemeanor any free black who might 
leave without proper cause, before the expiration of the time 
agreed, the service of one to whom he had hired him- 
self. The black could be arrested on a warrant, and judgment 
on the case was to be given by the magistrate according to 
equity, each party having the right to produce witnesses. The 
oath of the employer and the evidence of some other person 
that the black had engaged in such service, was declared prima 
facie evidence of the contract; but the justice must be satis- 
fied that the wages were reasonably secure to the black, and 
that he had not left service from improper treatment or other 
good cause. If convicted, he had to fulfil his agreement, 
compensate for lost time, and pay costs. If duly convicted of 
a second offence, he might be put in jail for not over a week, 
and be treated as a free negro apprentice. If a black were con- 
victed of having agreed in writing, or by supplement of two 
years later, of receiving wages in advance on a verbal agree- 
ment, to hire out, and of having then hired out to another 
without cause for breaking his agreement, the first empK.ycr 
could sue to recover two-fifths of the wages agreed on. Txit 



House Journal, 1853; Feb. 5th— May. 



224 The Negro in Maryland. 

it was specially provided that nothing in the act should be 
con.strued to delwr any free black from prosecuting any action 
lor cruel treatment or improper usage on the part of his 
employer/ 

In 1850, the Kent county News had complained that 
laborers were scarcer than ever before, and attributed the fact 
to the refusal of free negroes to hire out on the farms as they 
used to do. In the winter of '55, there were complaints in the 
counties of scarcity of labor. Likely negroes were bringing 
high wages, and several farmers of Queen Anne's, according to 
the Centreville Sentinel, had gotten apprentices from the Phil- 
delphia house of refuge. There were the same complaints the 
following summer. The Cambridge Democrat says that some 
farmers of Dorchester had called a meeting to consider what 
wages should be paid, as high rates were expected. Another 
local paper wisely regretted, the next year, that the farmers 
could not get hold of the able-bodied men who were loafing 
about the cities.^ 



It was during the winter of 1829-30 that Mr. William 
liloyd (iarrisoM was editing in Baltimore the Genius of Uni- 
t-erna/ Kinaiicipaiion, declaring that to hold slaves longer in 
bondage was both unnecessary and tyrannical, that justice 
demanded their liberation, and that to recompense slave 
owners for emancipation would be paying a thief for giving 
up stolen jiropci-ty.-' JJut the press was free, and for such 



' 1854, 273 ; 1866, 252. Tlierc were also penalties against those who might 
knowin^;ly fni|)loy freu Ijhuks convicted under the act, within a limited time 
nfler cotivictiiiii. Tlie first employer would have a lien on the earnings of 
the hhirk. 

•S-e llnltimorc Sun, ISoO, Jan. loth; ISoo, Jan. 3rd, Feb. IGtli, June 
Ittlh; IHTK], Jan, 7th, &c. 

•Life of (Jarriwn, Vol. II, 143, lol. Tlie indictment under which Mr. 
(Jnrrimin wuh impriHoned in Raltirnore Jail, in 1830, was for libel against 
«vrtiiin pepsontt. lie hft I!:illim,)re8ome weeks after his release. 



The Free Negro. 225 

general statements, however displeasing they may have been, 
there was no redress at law. In 1835, a supplement to the 
act of 1831 declared it to be a high offence, to be pnnishe<l I)v 
imprisonment for from ten to twenty years, for anv person 
whatever to take any part, knowingly, in the preparation or 
circulation of any printed or written matter having a tendency 
to create discontent among the colored people, or to stir tliem 
to insurrection. In 1841, a further supplement prescribed the 
same penalty for any free colored person who should, know- 
ingly, call for or receive at any postoffice, or receive or have 
in his or her possession, any abolition hand-bill, pamphlet, 
newspaper, pictorial representation or other paper of an 
inflammatory character. And it was declared the dutv of 
everyone, under penalty for neglect of a fine of not less than 
five hundred dollars or of not less than two months in jail, to 
inform against any free black who might be, or might have 
been, in possession of any such papers. And grand juries were 
ordered to have summoned before them at every term of court, 
for due examination, all the postmasters, deputies and agents, 
in their jurisdictions. This bill passed the House without 
roll-call or special mention, but was first defeated by the 
Senate, and passed on reconsideration.' The next year, the 
act was so modified that postmasters need not be summoned 
before the juries unless it were deemed necessary, and there 
was added that on the complaint to a justice of anyone, under 
oath, that a free black was thought to be having or circulating 
or furnishing to slaves, any abolition or "■ free papers," a con- 
stable and not less than three respectable citizens should be 
empowered to search the premises of the black, using as little 
violence to his feelings as might be compatible with a diligent 
search. 

At the April term, 1857, of the circuit court for Dorchester 
county, a free black was tried— before the court by ids choiw 
— on two indictments. On one he was found not guilty, but 



'See 1835, 325; 1841, 272; 1842, 163. 
15 



226 The Negro in Maryland. 

on tlie other, for knowingly having in his possession "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," he was given the minimum term of ten years.^ 
The courts may, of course, have regularly charged the grand 
juries with these acts at each term, as they were bidden to do, 
without any mention being made of it in the Baltimore papers, 
but in the spring and summer of 1860, after the John Brown 
invasion, we find special mention of charges to the juries by 
the courts for Baltimore, Frederick, Harford, Howard, Kent 
and Queen Anne's counties. The "Helper Book" and the 
Neic York Tribune seem to have given the most uneasiness. A 
free black was arrested in Harford county in February, 1860, 
but the indictment was quashed at the spring term of court. 
The incendiary document in this case was said in the papers 
to be the New York Tribune. In November following, a white 
man was tried in Dorchester for circulating Helper's Impend- 
ing Q-isis, but the jury found not guilty.* 



The act of 1809 — which, with the building of the peniten- 
tiary, marks most prominently the era of new ideas of crimes 

'This negro was pardoned by the Governor of Maryland in 1802, on con- 
dition of his leaving the State, on the representation of a prominent citizen 
of K:iltimore that he had heen innocent of any attempt at violation of the 
law. It was said that the book had been left in his house by people who 
wihhi'd to >;et liini into trouble. 

* We find mention of tlie arrest of two other whites in the sprinc: of 1860. 
S«e Ilaliiiiiore Sun, for May ."rd and May 24th. The Chestertown News says 
thill tlie ^'•^Mnd jury of Kent thought it the duty of postmasters to read 
evervthing in papers received, but the judge said the general character of 
a pHper was suliicient. See Haltimore Sun, April 24th, 1860. It is inter- 
tilling to note tliat the Baltimore city Police Commissioners were not 
allowetl to employ on the police any "black Republican" or endorser of 
thp " ll.lp.r ll<M)k." Sec Code of 1860, Local Laws. In 1835 {Niles' Reg- 
urrr.V.il. .\MX,7) fourteen ministersof the annual conference of the Metho- 
diht Kpitifopul church, while ajjproving of gradual emancipation, begged 
al>.>litionihih to ikhint from spreading inflammatory papers, which could only 
eniUrriwH tlic l)lacks, slave and free. In 1847, the House of Delegates laid 
on till- ubie petitions from the citizens of Cecil county, both to allow and 
to prevent ttboiition lecturea in Maryland. 



The Free Negro. 227 

and punishments— provided that slaves convicted of crimes 
for which the penalty M-as not hanging, might, in the discre- 
tion of the court, be whipped and banished by sale into some 
"foreign country"; but there was no line drawn between free- 
men, white and black. In 1817 there was enacted that no 
colored person should thereafter be sentenced to the peniten- 
tiary for less than one year ; and that in all cases where the 
term prescribed was less than a year, or where the court, in 
the exercise of its discretion, might deem so long a punish- 
ment as a year unjust, the black should be whipped, fined or 
imprisoned in jail, as the court might adjudge. The next year 
the penitentiary was closed entirely to slaves who, in non- 
capital cases, were to be whipped or banished from Maryland. 
In 1821 a bill was introduced in the House to forbid also the 
punishment of free blacks by imprisonment in the peniten- 
tiary, but it was referred to the next Assembly. The question 
does not seem to have come up again until 1825, when a bill 
for that purpose was passed, after some opposition. No person 
was to be sent to the penitentiary for less than two years, and 
no free black for any terra. For any crime not punishes! by 
hanging, a free black would be sentenced, in the discretion of 
the court, to not over forty lashes on the bare back — a slave 
could be given up to one hundred, by the act of 1800 — or to 
banishment from Maryland and sale as a slave for the same 
number of years that a white would be imprisoned. The 
convict was given an official copy of the judgment. The j)ro- 
ceeds of the sale paid for expenses, indemnified any injured 
parties, and the balance went into the county or city treasury.' 
Within a few days of the beginning of the next session, a res- 
olution was offered to refer the operation of this new law to 
the committee on Grievances, to report amendments, if desir- 
able; as it was obvious that great abuses would prevail under 
it, inasmuch as — the record of judgment being liable to be 



11809, 138 (9); 1817, 72; 1818, 197; 1825, 93. The District of rolum- 
bia was excepted in the acts of 1818 and 1825. 



228 The Negro in Maryland. 

destroyed by the purchasers— it was feared that in most cases 
the sentence of sale for a year would in effect amount to sale 
f )r life. This resolution was adopted after two readings; but 
uii.Mi the mover asked leave, two months later, to introduce a 
bill to repeal or modify the act of 1825, the House voted 
a>:ain<t him by forty to thirty-two, seven members calling for 
the aves and nays, and the committee was discharged from 
further consideration of the matter. Later in the session, how- 
ever, the law was so changed that a free black was again im- 
prisoned for crime, as a white man was, but on discharge from 
tiie penit(Mitiary, whether by the expiration of the term or by 
purdnii, he was given not over thirty dollars, from the results 
of his labor, and was banished the State within sixty days — 
under penalty of being sold as a slave for a term equal to the 
original sentence, for the benefit of anyone who might find 
hitii and could prove the facts of the case to a judge or two 
justices of the county.^ The act of 1831 allowed the courts, 
ill tlicir discretion, to punish free blacks for offences not capi- 
tal bv the ordinary penalties, or by banishment " by transpor- 
tation into some foreign country." It does not seem probable 
that many were banished under this provision, for we find 
iiuinbci-s of them sent to the penitentiary in the following 
years. From November, 1832, to November, 1835, one hun- 
drcil an<l forty-nine were sent from Baltimore city and county, 
UH against one hundred and four whites. The act of '31, also, 
w«' remember, made free negroes liable to the same treatment 
and penalties as were given slaves, if they were convicted of 
taking part with slaves in any misdemeanor for which slaves 
wei'e j)uiiished l>y a justice. For many petty offences, notably 
under local laws, free blacks could be whipped where whites 
Would Ir? put ill jail.-' Tlie next important general law was 



' 1826, 2'2U; IIouhi- Journiil, 47, 422. 

' I8in, li'SS, H. Tlius liy lS.i2, rjT, any negro wlio took oysters unlawfully 
ill WorcwiiiT county, and wlio could not pay the fine, might be given not 
oviT ihirly-nine lashcM. In Haltiniore jail, under act of 1831, 58, prisoners 



The Free Negro. 229 

that of 1885, which ordered the criminal courts to examine 
every free black convicted before them, and empowered them 
if they found that he, or she, had been previously sentencrd 
to the penitentiary for any crime, to have him sold for a term 
of years without the State. The proceeds of sucii sales, after 
paying the expenses of prosecution, went to the public treasury. 
Three years later this was changed so as to pay one-fourth the 
net proceeds as a reward to the officer who apprehended and 
prosecuted the black.' In 1842, as we saw, the penalty for 
any free black convicted of dealing in any stolen goods was 
fixed at banishment and sale as a slave for from five to tea 
years, and that for a second offence in taking part in unlawful 
societies, was sale for life. Also, by act of 1849, the i)eualty 
for a second conviction of certain frauds on the revenue, might 
be sale out of the State. In 1836, leave had been given for 
the introduction of a bill, to punish by sale as slaves for life 
out of Maryland, free blacks convicted of felony in general — 
the old act of '25 revived with greater harshness. The com- 
mittee on Colored Population was opposed to the plan, but 



were worked with tlieir own consent, but vagrants, slaves and free negroes 
had to work without option, if ordered. By 1837, 228, the penalty for 
injuring certain gates on public roads in Charles and Prince George's coun- 
ties, was fine of not over ten dollars, or not over thirty-nine lashes for a 
slave, on conviction before a magistrate, and "any white person " aggrieved 
could appeal to the county court. 

By many town ordinances, free blacks as well as slaves could be wiiippid 
for roaming about at night, &c. 

11835, 200; 1 838, GO. Tiiis must have been intended to recnforco tlie 
act of 182G, which had banished from Maryland all free blacks .li-^chargcd 
from the penitentiary, under penalty of sale for the benefit of the fimler. 
A petition from sundry citizens of Caroline, for a repeal of this provision 
of the act of 1826, was presented the House in 183S; but it is foiuid in 
the Code of 1860, art. 30, 99. In a case before Baltimore county court, in 
1841, the counsel for the negro claimed that the identity of a negro 
punished under the act of 1835, was a question for a jury to decide ; but 
the court held that tiie act was merely for the regulation of the court 
in inflicting punishment, and raised no new issue. (See iS77e«' Register, 
Vol. LXI, 217.) 



230 The Negro in Maryland. 

advised its reference to the committee ou Crimes. This com- 
mittee reported favorably, but the matter was postponed. In 
1842, some one suggested, to no result, an inquiry into the 
j.lan of banishing to Africa all free blacks liable to imprison- 
ment, and in 1845, certain citizens of Charles county asked 
ft)!- wliipping and transportation for them ; but the committee 
on Crimes did not evidently apjjrove of any change. In 1853 
there were two requests for enquiries into the wisdom of 
changing the laws so as to sell free black convicts for the 
benefit of the counties, instead of supporting them in the peni- 
tetitiary. In 1856, a bill was introduced, to sell out of Mary- 
land for the balance of their terms, all the free negroes then 
in that institution, the proceeds to go to the State treasury; 
and to sell the slaves for life, the proceeds to go to the coun- 
ties which had already paid the masters.^ Baltimore city and 
ci.uiity had sent to the penitentiary, in 1852, twenty-nine 
whites and eighteen blacks, slave and free; in '53, forty-seven 
whltc-s to twenty-one blacks ; in '54, sixty to nineteen ; in 
'50, thirty-eight to ten ; in '57, twenty-eight to nineteen. A 
number of blacks were sold out of the State, most of them as 
having been already prison-birds, probably. At one term of 
Haltimdre criminal court, in 1853, nine were sold; at another, 
two. The next year, two were sold at one term, four at an- 
other, and one at another. At the following winter term, four 
were sold. The number of blacks committed to the peniten- 
tiaiv had not iiicicased in proportion to the whites, though 
slaves had been again imprisoned for serious offences after 
1815, hut the accommodations of the institution were insuffi- 
cient for till- total number of inmates. The executive message 
of 1H54 called attention to the fact that for twenty years, with 
three exceptions, the annual exi)enditures were in excess of tiie 
receipts from hd)or. At the next Assembly, the bad condition 



'lloiiM- Journal, 1S:50, lOS; 1S42, 39; 1845, 27; 1S53, 27, 2So ; 1S5G, 
CIH, 083. 



The Free Negro. 231 

of the buildings was carefully pointed out. The message of 
1858 declared the institution in great financial embarrassment, 
one wing of the building having been burned, in addition to 
the usual deficit, and advised a change of the law so that 
slaves might be transported, as before 1845, in order to reduce 
the four hundred and more inmates, of whom from a third to 
a half were negroes. A special House committee reported at 
the same session the need of fifty thousand dollars, and 
declared boldly that the over-crowded buildings were almost 
a " pest house." Something must be done, and a change in 
the punishment of petty larceny was suggested.^ The Assemi)ly 
chose to change radically the punishment of the free blacks. 
For stealing any goods under the value of five dollars, or for 
breaking into any store, barn or outbuilding and stealing 
goods under the value of one dollar, or for simple larceny 
above five dollars, the penalty for a free black was sale as a 
slave for from two to five years.^ For wounding or killing 
wilfully a horse or mule not trespassing on his land, from two 
to four years. For stealing any horse or mule, sale for from 
two to fourteen years ; for stealing a vessel or a slave, from 
three to twelve years ; for persuading or aiding any slave or 
black apprentice to run away, for not less than five years — in 
all three cases, either within or beyond the State. For arson, 
instead of hanging or not over twenty years' imprisonment, a 
free black must be hung or sold as a slave for life, within or 
beyond the State. In cases of robbery, only, the choice was 
left to the courts between the ordinary imprisonment in tiie 



' 1858, Doc. O. "Should a contagion," added the committee, "visit the 
prison, which may God in his mercy avert, no prediction can be made as to 
its consequences, not only as to the prison, but to the city in general." If 
the solution of the problem was to be the reduction on a large scale of tlie 
inmates, it is obvious that the Governor's suggestion would be insum.ient, 
for the larger part of the negroes were freemen convicted of larceny— an 
offence for which slaves were not imprisoned. 

»The minimum term for which anyone could be sentenced to the |>en!- 
tentiary had been fixed at eighteen months (1839, 37). Imprisonment for 
enticing or aiding a slave to escape was from two to live years (1844, 80). 



232 The Negro in Maryland. 

penitentiary for from tliree to ten years, or sale for ten years. 
The j)r(»«'e('(ls of the sale of any black paid for the expenses of 
prosecution and any just claims for damages, and any balance 
was given the county or city for the use and maintenance of 
any indigent child or wife he might leave. Not only was the 
convict furnished with a certified copy of the judgment, but 
tlie sheriff was ordered to give notice in the paper of the neigh- 
borliood where he had been convicted — or by posters in each 
election district of the county, if there was no paper published 
there — of the coming expiration of the term of service, for 
three successive weeks preceding the ex[)iration. There was 
provided also the penalty of not less than one hundred dollars 
fine, or not over two months in jail, for a sheriff or clerk of 
court neglecting wilfully the duties of the act. And anyone 
who sold a convict for a longer time than his term, or in any- 
way deprived him of freedom, when it was due, ^^'as liable to 
Ik' fined double the sum paid for the black, and in default, to 
be imprisoned fi)r from thirty to ninety days, or to be fined 
and imprisoned. 

During the two years following the passage of this act, 
eighty-nine free blacks in all M-ere sold, twenty-four by the 
courts of Baltimore city, eleven in Baltimore county, eight in 
Harford, seven, each, in Dorchester, Frederick and Talbot, 
Ac. Four of these were sold for life ; but the average term 
was between four and five years. The crime seems to have 
IxH'n invariably larceny of some degree. Without the act of 
1858, said the conmiittee on Colored Population in their report 
to the House, the number of free blacks in the penitentiary 
woiilil have been two hundred and ten instead of one hun- 
<\w\\ and twenty-one. The number of slaves imprisoned was 
ordy thirteen.' During the year 1800, sixteen men and ten 



' Ue|H)rl of Hoii«e committee, Feb. 7th, ISGO. IJaltiniorejail had twenty- 
one froe hhtrkH niul two 8hivc«. In 18G1, there were seventeen bhieks soM 
ami one lihick and thirty-seven wliites Kent to the penitentiary from Balti- 
riiorc jiiil. 



The Free Negro. 



233 



women were sold from Baltimore jail, and one negro only 
sent thence to the penitentiary— against fifty-three whites. 
It is obvious that the objections raised in 182G, that tlie sale 
of free blacks for a term of years out of the State amounted 
often, to say the least, to sale for life, were equally patent 
against this act of 1858/ For larceny and two other offences, 
the act of 1858 ordered simply the sale as a slave. One 
black, who was sentenced for simple larceny by the circuit 
court for Baltimore city in 1859, to be sold out of Maryland 
for five years, carried his case to the Court of Appeals, which 
held the sentence to be illegal, as allowing the black to be 
purchased by a non-resident only, instead of by a resident or 
non-resident, according to the chances of sale at auction.* In 
1860 the law was changed in so far that a free black con- 
victed of any offence for which a white man would be sent to 
the penitentiary, was sold either in or out of Maryland, at the 
discretion of the court, for as long a time as a white man 
would be imprisoned. The proceeds went, as before, after 
paying the expenses of prosecution and damages, to the family 
of the convict, but if there was no family, to the county or 
city.^ 



The number of Whites "| 
and Blacks coinnaitled \ 
to Baltimore jail for... ) 


1852 


1853 


1854 


1857 


1858 


1869 


1860 




W. 

24 

208 
241 


B. 

8 
27 
125 


W. 

no, 

X07 

225 


B. 

1 
71 
132 


\V. 

11 
349 
374 


B. 

1 
86 
138 


W. 

28 

38:i 
337 

14% 


B. 

2 
100 
108 

"liis 


W. 

51 
485 
417 

isso 


B. 

2 

72 
115 

690 


W 

32 
318 
3.M 
1730 
1353 


B. 

6 
61 
loy 

19.'. 
433 


W 

28 

eoi 

203 
610 
2577 


B. 
4 


For assault and battery... 


47 
150 




133 


Peace warrants 














460 



The population of Baltimore in 18G0 was 184,520 whites, 25,680 free 
blacks, and 2,218 slaves. 

iRow could a black sold to a Louisiana planter be lielpcd in his claim 
to freedom, years after, by the sheriff's notice in a Maryland county paper? 

*14 Md., 412. The offence in this ca.se was larceny of a silver wat.h 
valued at six dollars. The black was discharged, the judgment being held 
to be more than a technical amplification of the law. A free black sold in 
Maryland for a term of years would, of course, have the bcnetit of the law 
regulating the transportation of slaves for terms of years. 

3 Code of 1860, Art. 30, 194. 



234 The Negro in Maryland. 

Such, in general, was the legal status of the free negroes 
in Maryland. One is not likely, in studying it, to lose sight 
of the influence of slaveholding; but it would evidently be 
most unjust to measure all this legislation by the gauge of 
hostility to the free black. The easy license system for 
the sale of liquor to free blacks in the counties, must 
have injured the liquor dealers only and been of real service 
t<j the blacks. The fondness of the negro for drink is well 
known. If an honest black was sometimes put to slight 
trouble over the sale of his produce, there were many others 
who felt no conscience to keep them from pilfering. Of the 
convictions in Liberia, as reported by the officials from 1828 
to 1844, two hundred and ninety-one were for larceny against 
eighty-two for all other offences.^ Many of the free blacks in 
Maryland were going to the towns, one to become prosperous 
and respected, while a half-dozen others stood about in the 
sun, working at small jobs for a week in order to live from 
the proceeds for a month. The idea that the free blacks were 
not a desirable part of the population was not confined to the 
Southern slaveholding States.* 



We have touched, in passing, on plans that were 
advanced for the further regulation or disposition of the free 



• The popiiliition luid tlien grown to be nearly 2400. As a rule, emigrants 
to Liberia were tiiu best negroes. 

'See. for instance, the report of a committee to the Massachusetts Legis- 
lature in 1K21, by Mr. Theodore Lynian, Jr. See Niles' Register, Vol. XX, 
311; iinil Dr. Moore's Slavery in Massachusetts. 

Dr. CluiB. I)eane says (Proceedings Am. Antiiiuarian Soc, Oct., 1886): 
' It ia not to be denietl that the negro race, l)ond or free, was not regarded, 
bore (i. e. in Mu.s«.) as a desirable element of the population. They were 
Kenemlly ignorant and degraded, and required to be looked after and cared 
for ajt children, and strict regulations were made to ensure order among 
Ihcni, to see liiat they niiould have employment, and to provide for a 
heultiiy .sanitary condition." 



The Free Negro. 235 

blacks of Maryland. It will be well to notice these and other 
plans, more carefully, in chronological order. 

In 1817, a number of gentlemen of Baltimore had associated 
together, to further the work of the American Colonization 
Society ; and the Assembly of that year resolved unanimously 
to communicate to the President of the United States and to 
the senators and representatives from Maryland, the oj)inion 
that a wise and provident policy suggested the acquisition of 
a tract of land on the coast of Africa, for the colonization of 
the free blacks of the country. Two years later, another and 
similar communication was sent to the members of Congress 
from the State, and the House of Delegates regretted that the 
State finances would not allow a contribution to the deserving 
efforts of the Colonization Society. In 1826, one thousand 
dollars was appropriated, to be given annually for the work 
of the Society among the free blacks of Maryland — the only 
plan, reads the act, which can promise practical benefit both 
to the country and to that class which it is intended to relieve. 
In 1830, the Maryland branch of the society was incor- 
porated.^ In 1818, a bill for the registration of all free blacks 
in Maryland passed the House but was rejected by the Senate. 
In 1821, there was some effort made in the House for a bill 
of the same nature. The free blacks, then growing into quite 
a class of the community, were looked on with growing dis- 
favor. In a correspondence, over runaway slaves, with the 
authorities of Pennsylvania, the Maryland commissionei-s said 
that it seemed to them impossible in the nature of things 
that free blacks could be amalgamated with the whites. 
However liberal we may feel towards them, said the com- 
missioners, they cannot be given the enjoyment of every poli- 
tical privilege, and must be in some ways a distinct portion 
of the community. And Pennsylvania, they added, if reports 
were true, had already felt the burden of a free black i)opula- 



» Griffith's Annals of Baltimore, 223 ; 1817, Res. 5; 1819, Res. 58, Hoiue 
Journal for Jan. 3d, 1820 ; 1825, Res. 53; 1826, ch. 172; 1830, 1S9. 



236 The Negro in Maryland. 

ti,,n — a people usually extremely dissolute and idle, and con- 
sofjuc'iitly a ])ublie nuisance. A series of papers in Niles' 
Reginter, published in Baltimore, had already called earnestly 
for the abolition of slavery — "this blot, or curse," it said, 
which no righteous man or lover of republican institutions 
could believe to be permanent — but on condition that pro- 
vision be made for the separation of the freed-men from the 
slaves, as the mixture of them was fatal to the improvement 
of both and at open war with the safety of person and prop- 
erty of the whites. A special committee of five members of 
the House of Delegates, on certain comnuuiications from the 
Lt'gislatin-es of Georgia and Missouri, on colonization, in 1829, 
expressed the opinion that no one probably, at that enlightened 
day, would doubt that the existence of a free black popula- 
tion was a national evil, which might tend to embarrass the 
wholesome operations of the government: but all this pre- 
amble to their report was struck out by the House. At this 
same session, the House received four petitions, mostly from 
citizens of Somerset county, for changes in the law on manu- 
missi(»n — doubtless to restrict the privilege — and for a tax on 
free blacks. These were referred to the committee on Griev- 
ances, evidently without any answer.' 

Late in the summer of 1831 occurred the insurrection in 
Southampton county, Virginia. Early in the session of the 
Maryland Assembly, the December following, a joint committee 
of five senators and seven members was appointed, on the sug- 
gestion of the House that the colored population of the State 
hail Ix'cn a subject of absorbing interest, and that experience 
demonstrated that some legislative action was indispensable 
at that session. To the consideration of this committee were 
refcrnMl some twenty petitions and memorials, frt)m all parts 



'HouM- JouriKils, 1818, .S7, IIG; 1821,9; 1822,104; NilaC Register, \q\. 
16, pp. 177, 211 ; IIoiiw Journals, 1829, .Tan. Ist-lStli, pp. 3.%, 547. Mr. 
Kt-v.-rdy .Jolinst.n was pr<>l)al.ly tlu- writer of tlie coiniinniication to Penii- 
Bjflvnnia, us tin- Houm- asked iiini to continue tlie correspondence. 



The Free Negi^o. 237 

of the State. Several of these, signed by many and highly 
respectable citizens — notably one from Baltimore — askcil 
for abolition of slavery. Others desired to have manu- 
mission made conditional on the removal of the freed men. 
Others, still, more stringent police regnhition of the free 
blacks. A motion to have all these memorials printed for 
the use of the House, was lost by a large majority, but a 
thousand copies of the report of the committee were ordered. 
After several weeks, the committee introduced a bill on the 
free black population, which, after some amendments, became 
the act of '31 on free negroes and "slaves. Copies of the l)ill 
were distributed, and it was laid on the table for several weeks 
by request of the committee. After careful consideration, it 
passed the House by a vote of forty-five to ten.* We are familiar 
with its general provisions — restrictions on the immigration of 
free negroes and the importation of slaves, on the use of fire- 
arras by blacks, on the sale of liquor and other dealings with 
them, on religious meetings; and the grant to the courts 
of the power to banish free blacks convicted of non-capital, 
serious offences, and to punish like slaves such free blacks as 
might be convicted of petty offences with slaves. But harder 
questions for the committee to answer were those relating to 
abolition of slavery and to the black population already in the 
State. That this population was injurious to the prosperity 
of the State, they frankly granted. Recent events had ])roven 
to the people that there must be a separation of the races. 
The question was to find a remedy which the State could 
apply, consistent with its honor, and with a due regard to the 
welfare of the blacks, that unfortunate class of the i)opnlati.»n. 
Emancipation, as it had been tried, had been a doubli'ul gift 
to all concerned ; economic benefits, especially in the value of 
lands, would result to the State from the removal <»f slavery; 
and so the committee advised the plan of colonization in 
Africa, of manumission conditional, as a rule, on emigration. 



1 1831, ch. 323. House Journal, 94, 114, 304, 310, 467, 544. 



238 The Negro in Maryland. 

An annual expenditure, they asserted, of forty thousand and 
two hundred dollars, would remove entirely the colored 
persons in Maryland within a generation.' Such was the 
policy proposed for the State. Meantime, the Maryland Col- 
onization Society w^as being formed by a number of gentlemen, 
for tlie removal to Africa of those free blacks who might be 
willing to go, and of slaves freed for the purpose. The act of 
1831, embodying these suggestions of the committee, provided 
fur the appointment by the Governor of a board of three man- 
agers, members of the ^laryland Colonization Society, to take 
charge of the removal from the State of such blacks already 
free as should consent to emigrate, and of all those to be there- 
after manumitted, whether they consented or not, unless they 
obtained annual permits to remain from the orphans' courts. 
Manumissions were to be reported to the board, and all 
sheriffs were to report a complete census of all free blacks, 
under penalty of two hundred dollars, and to keep the board 
informed of any who might be willing to emigrate. And the 
State appropriated then the sum of twenty thousand dollars 
for the exj)enses involved in the work during the current 
year, and pledged itself to further sums, not to exceed two hun- 
dred thousand dollars in all. An annual levy was ordered on 
the various counties and on Baltimore, in proportion to the free 
bhick jxipnlation. Tiie vote on this act in the House was 
thirty-seven to twenty-three.^ The publication of these acts 
on nognw'S was ordered by the Assembly, in two of the news- 
pa|MTS in Baltimore and in one in every county. A resolution 
ha<l already been passed, early in the session, calling on con- 
gressmen to obtain national aid, if necessary, by proposing an 



' lic'jKjrt uf cuniruiUfc on grievances, <ic., on tlie colored population, 1831. 
Tlu- (•«iniinille«- tons^isted, on tlie part of the Senate, of Messrs. Taney, Emory, 
IViniih, Woi.Uon, Piginan ; of tiie House, Brawner, of Cliarles county 
(ciniirnuinj, lUakeston, of St. Mary's; Brewer, of Annapolis; Pearce, of 
Kinl; l^ikf, of Dorchester; Cariuichael, of Queen Anne's, and Handy, of 
\V<irc-«."»(it'r. 

' i.Hin, 'i^\. 



The Free Negro. 239 

amendment to the Constitution, for removing the free blacks of 
the country.' The Maryland Colonization Society numhercd 
among its members some of the most able and respected citi- 
zens of the State, and the abolition of slavery, as well as the 
removal of the free blacks, was one of the objects of the work 
which they now entered upon with the patronage of the State. 
But as compulsory emigration under the act of 1831 was not 
enforced — the members of the society not desiring it and 
public sentiment not demanding it — that work became the 
removal of those free blacks who could be persuaded to go, 
and of some of those who were freed especially for emigration. 
It was more costly work, too, than the committee of '31 had 
expected. In 1832, one hundred and forty-four — of whom 
some seventy- five were free born — were sent to Africa, at the 
cost of over five thousand dollars. This was the largest expe- 
dition. The next year eighteen were sent out, and eight 
thousand dollars were spent ; the next year, again, fifty-seven 
were sent at a cost of nearly three thousand. Xor had the col- 
onization taxes been cheerfully paid ; in some counties they 
had not been levied by the spring of 1835. Some of the 
counties indeed had received no benefit whatever from the 
law. Of the first and largest expedition to Africa, ninety-one 
blacks, nearly two-thirds of all, had gone from Somerset, four- 
teen from Worcester, twelve from Caroline, ten from Cecil, etc., 
but here emigration from Worcester and Somerset had stopped, 
and eleven only had gone from Caroline, further, in 1835, 
and sixteen from Cecil in 1836. There were already requests 
from Somerset and St. Mary's counties to be exempted from 
the special tax. One black only had gone from the latter 
county, but its quota of the tax was two hundred and sixty- 



11831 Ees. 124. As "recent occurrences in tliis State as well as in 
other States of our Union, have impressed more deeply upon our minds tlie 
necessity" of means for such removal. A resolulion of the next wsMon 
asked for the appropriation of the funds from the sale of puMic land, for 
internal improvement, aid to education and aid to colonization, (lies. 128.) 



240 The Negro in Maryland. 

three dollars yearly. Frederick county was to contribute nearly 
nint' Imndred and fifty dollars yearly, and only six blacks had 
emigrated from it up to 183G, when seventeen went. An act 
of 1834 ordered the levy courts to charge interest on back 
payments still due, and deficits in future were to be made up, 
temporarily at least, from the free school or other funds in the 
hands of the State treasurer.' In 1835, a bill to abolish the 
special tax throughout the State was left on the table. At the 
next session, the committee on Colored Population, being called 
on to report on the expediency of repealing entirely the act of 
1831, of giving up colonization as the State policy, stated that 
colonization — adopted after the melancholy issue of theSouth- 
amj)ton insurrection had warned that no time was to be lost in 
laying foundation for future security — still boded well. Ithas 
long been a maxim, added the committee, that the existence of 
separate and distinct castesiu society is an inherent vice, pregnant 
with the most baneful consequences. The free black, dead 
to every generous prompting of ambition, because debarred of 
ultimate aim, has ever been an incubus on society. Our 
deepest, warmest sympathies they have, but while they remain 
among us, little more can be extended. A curse to our slaves, 
whom they are constantly corrupting, an evil to the wdiites, 
between whom and them the laws of God and nature have 
drawn lines never to be effaced, they must leave our shores if 
they would be happy and prosperous. On this report no 
action seems to have been taken." 

Meanwhile the plan was offered of requiring all free blacks 
to renew ammally their certificates of freedom ; but the com- 
Miiitt-e reported — in which the House agreed — that confusion 



' 1834, 197. In 1832 (Ch. 314) tlie appropriations to the American Col- 
oiiizaiion .Society lia<i reverted in part to the State, as tliese liad not been 
dniwn for wveral years. Certain taxes also went to the woric of the State 
Sx-icty ; aa those on tlie introdiu-tion into Maryhind of skives who had 
Ikimi uc<)uired by marriage, be(inest or in distrii)iition (Jllo for every able 
nejcro, Ae.). 1833, 87. See Report of Committee, 1840. 

•See Ue|orl of House Cummittee on CoU)red Population, 1836. 



The Free Negro. 241 

would ensue and facilities for escape be given slaves, bv the 
great number of certificates required, and that additional 
burdens would be thrown on the blacks, a large portion of 
whom were then scarcely able to procure the necessaries of 
life.^ The committee was then ordered — there were thirteen 
votes against taking up their time over the matter— to con- 
sider the expediency of compelling free blacks to emigrate 
within a stated time. To drive the free blacks away, an- 
swered the committee, would be to send them to the free 
States, to make easier the path for runaway slaves, and to 
league with fanatic abolitionists. Then justice cries aloud 
against forced removal. However much every well-wisher 
of Maryland may desire to see her rid of the free blacks, at 
present a vicious and degraded population, yet we do not 
think, said the committee, that the enlightened legislators of 
the State are prepared, in the accomplishment of that desir- 
able end, to steel their hearts against every consideration of 
justice and right. Should the proposed legislation be carried 
out, our consciences might remind us that the glorious result 
had been dearly purchased at the cost of State faith and 
justice; and some malignant foe of our institutions might 
point his finger at the Declaration of Independence and the 
State Bill of Rights, and call them unmeaning parchment. 
This report was left on the table, apparently.^ 

The Governor's message of 1837 spoke of the valiin of the 
colonization scheme, and stated that the attempts of the iiiends 
of immediate and general abolition to defeat the work of the 
Colonization Society's agents were losing force. In 1841, the 
committee on Colored Population summed up the work <lone 
since 1832 by the State board of managers. The total 
number of emigrants sent out had been six hundred and 
twenty-seven to Africa and twenty-five to Hayti. The amount 
drawn from the State had been over sixty-six thousand dollars. 



1 House Journal, 1835, 39, 48. 

2 See Keport of Committee on Colored Population, 1836. 

16 



242 The Negro in Maryland. 

There had always been room in the vessels for more emigrants; 
t»\\in^ somewhat to the -work among the blacks of the enemies 
of colonization, the abolitionists/ 

A number of slaveholders of Anne Arundel county met in 
Septemlier, 1841, and issued a call for a general convention of 
persons favorable to the protection of the slaveholding inter- 
ests of the State. Delegations of twenty were to be appointed 
in each county and Howard district and the cities of Balti- 
more, Annapolis and Frederick. The convention, accordingly, 
assembled at Annapolis — in the hall of the House of Dele- 
gates — in the following January; but the list of members 
appointed give only one hundred and thirty-one — and Alle- 
gany, Caroline, Carroll and Worcester counties were not rep- 
resented at all — instead of some four hundred and eighty, as 
(tailed for by the September meeting.^ The president and other 
prominent members urged prudence and caution : let these 
mark your deliberations, said the chair, the eyes of the whole 
w«»rld are upon us. The time was, said one member, when 
we had but few free blacks among us, and we entertained 
(liilrrcnt feelings to them then from those feelings we 
hold now, when, by their approximation in numbers to the 



' In July, 1832, thirty-one blacks had been sent off under the old State 
a|»pro|)riati()M for colonization ; adding these to those send under the act of 
1831, some 800 were sent in all, at a cost of about $900.00 apiece. In one 
fjwc only, we remember, was a shcriti called on, under the act of 1831, to 
reuiovf forcibly a manumitted black. In this case, the fellow had had 
b4)nie dispnlL' with liis old master, and was carried over the line by the 
shcTid. Had tin- liai-sh leatures of the act been enforced, the results of 
ciiloni/ation would, of course, have been very different. Under the 
uiLHiiici-x of the American Colonization Society, some 2U0 blacks had been 
utMil from Maryland. 

'S-i- SiUx lifijifter, vol. 01 ; Baltimore Avierican. A number of the aji- 
|M>intiil didejjaifs were not present, evidently, or at least did not remain, for 
on the WMond day there were only eighty-five. A reporter for a Northern 
alMtlition paper, who ventured there, was saved from summary punishment 
by the police. lie was juit in jail, and defended on his examination by one 
of ihf nu'ml)erH of the convention, of Annaiioli.s. The president of the 
«-«inventiuM wum of Prince CJeorge's. 



The Free Negro. 243 

whites, we are forced to look to the sliiekl of Uiw to protect 
us. The increasing demand for relief from every part of the 
State calls for some action — to be, however, in a true spirit of 
justice to all concerned. We must at last appeal to the peo- 
ple, for laws have failed, and must fail, unless they have the 
sanction of the whole people of the State. The work of the 
convention was a long list of suggestions for legislation, to be 
presented to the Assembly then in session. The most impor- 
tant of these were, — prohibition of manumission except on 
condition of instant transportation at the expense of the manu- 
mittor, to some place out of the country.^ Prohibition of all 
manumission by last will ; as well as by deed, if prospective. 
No free blacks to enter Maryland except as servants of trav- 
elers ; and strict regulations against the return of anv who 
might once leave the State. No free black to be carried on 
any train or steamer out of the State, unless vouched for as a 
freeman by some one known to the conductor or captain ; and 
the courts to appoint bailiffs, monthly, to watch the arrival and 
departure of all "common carriers," to prevent the escape of 
slaves. High rewards to be paid by the State for the convic- 
tion of those inducing or aiding slaves to escape; a-s well as 
rewards to be paid by the owners, according to the distance 
from home W'hich the runaway had covered, when caught. 
The State to pay all expenses of any cases which might arise 
from the conflict between the laws of any State and the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law, in order to test the constitutionality of the 
law. No free black to be allowed to hold any real estate, or 
any leasehold interest running for more than a year. No sales 
or gifts of slaves to free blacks, under penalty of fine to the 
master conveying, and of sale out of the State to the black 
so conveved. 'Every free black to give security, to be renewed 



iThis clause provoked some argument. One member— lie who lia.1 
defended the Northern reporter— op|x)sed it as tending to entail slavery. 
Another said the blacks had long been invited to leave, but ha.1 refusi>.l 
to o-o. One member urged no manumission at all. 



244 The Negro in Maryland. 

annually, for good behavior, under penalty for neglect of 
being hired out by a magistrate ; ten dollars of his wages 
being paid the person who had taken him before the magistrate; 
and attempts to run away being provided against by a penalty 
of sale out of the State, if caught. After 1843, the children 
of all free blacks were to be bound out by the courts, from the 
ages of eight to eighteen or twenty, when males M'ere to 
receive seventy-five dollars and females twenty-five, from 
the masters, on condition of leaving Maryland. All free 
blacks to register themselves and get new certificates, yearly, 
in the county offices. Sale out of Maryland or banishment, 
as punishment of free blacks for all offences not capital.^ No 
meetings of negroes for any purposes whatever, after sunset; 
and fine and imprisonment — with sale out of the State for a 
second offence — for any black having a license to preach, who 
might attend any illegal meetings. A fine of one hun- 
dred dollars, half to the informer, for any retail dealer who 
might give or sell, in any way whatever, any wine or liquors 
to any negro. And an increase in the cost of a license for a 
traveling pedlar. Such were the recommendations of this con- 
vention, which adjourned sine die, on the third day of sitting, 
after having named a committee of five members to present 
memorials to the Legislature. 

The House committee on Colored Population had been asked 
already to take some action, and leave had been granted them, 
two weeks before the slaveholders met, to briuo- in a bill "for 
the better govcrmnent of the free colored population of the 
State, and for tlie pi-otcction and perpetuation of negro slavery 
tJKivin." The memorial of the convention, duly presented 
a week or so after the adjonrnment, was read and referred to 
tlic same committee, and over a hundred copies were printed 
for the iii.iiiIhis and senators. Memorials and petitions 



' 'i'lii» <lanm-, it h interesting to note, brought up i-onsidorable argument, 
pro nnd eon. One eluiise ealleii, also, for the proliibition of fire-arms and 
wett|>onN to liliiekN, 



The Free Negro. 245 

against the work of the convention soon began to come in ; 
the Honse received twenty-six, and the Senate some eight 
others. Pnblic meetings were held in Baltimore, Centreville 
in Queen Anne's, Chestertown in Kent, and elsewhere; and a 
series of letters, signed Vindex, in the Baltimore Amancan, 
called attention to the fact that the convention, which sought 
to perpetuate slavery and to crush down large numbers of 
colored men, did not probably represent a seventh of the 
people of Maryland/ Meantime the committee's bill had 
received many amendments in the House; and the title was 
changed, to an act " for the better security of negro slaves in 
this State, and for promoting industry and honesty amongst 
the free people of color." It included — so much we know — 
an annual 'registration of free blacks; the sale for a year 
of all those " without visible means of support" and *' not of 
good and industrious habits," and the binding out of children 
whose parents were not of good character or could not honestly 
employ them. Every black manumitted should leave the 
State within twenty days, under penalty of sale by the year. 
Blacks could attend religious meetings after dark, provided 
there were present some authorized white clergyman, resident 
in Maryland, and at least three respectable slaveholders. And 
lockmen on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were to stop all 
boats whose captains were blacks. The bill passed the House, 
late in February, by a vote of forty to thirty-t)ric. On 
the day before, three memorials against such extreme 
measures were received from sundry citizens of Baltiinore. 



^See Niles' Register, Vol. LXI, 368, &c.; LXII, 16, &c. 

Some of tliese petitions were not signed by many names, and some of 
the meetings may not have been large ; but it is safe to say that llie action 
of the convention was disapproved by the majority of citizens. In the 
petitions, oppo.sition was directed noticeably against llio prolnbil.on of 
religious meetings after dark. See House Journal and Senate .lournal. 
1841, February Ist-March 8th. The Vinde.x letters begin in Hallimon- 
American, January 22d, 1842. There were few public c.xpres.sion» xu hivor 
of the suggestions of the convention. 



246 The Negro in Maryland. 

All the petitions on the files of the House, together with one or 
two which came in later, were then sent to the Senate. The 
hill was rejected by the Senate, ^March 8th, by fifteen to six. 



We have already noticed that Baltimore city was not foirly 
represented in the Legislature. The solemn claim ^ of the slave- 
holders' convention at Annapolis to be "a meeting of citizens 
of Maryland appointed in conformity with public notice to 
represent the wishes and feelings of their respective counties 
and cities, to thus constitute a general convention," may well 
turn us to study the matter more closely, as a matter indeed 
of vital importance. Under the constitution of 1776, each 
countv Mas entitled to four seats in the House of Delegates, 
and Annajwiis and Baltimore to two seats each. The Senate 
was a body of fifteen, chosen at large by electors, the only 
restriction being that nine must live on the Western Shore 
(/. e. of the Bay), and six on the Eastern Shore. This system 
continued until 1838. After that, and until the adoption of 
tlie constitution of 1864, each county and the city of Baltimore 
chose one senator; and each county, until after 1851, sent from 
tlirec; to six delegates, according to population, counted in 
" federal inunbers," and Baltimore was entitled to the same 
number as the most populous county. After the adoption of 
the constitution of 1851, the smallest counties had l)ut two 
members, and Baltimore was given ten. In 1840, fully one- 
(piaitt-r of all (he Mhites in the State were in ]5altimore city, 
and iii.'iiiy more than a (piartcr of all the free blacks. By 
1850, the proportion of both races had risen to one-third. 
As Delaware and New York were ecjually rejiresented in the 
natioiinl S.hmIc, so in the Maryland Senate, after 1837, Cal- 
vert • •uiMity, with some thirty-five hundred whites, fifteen 
hiiiidred iVee blacks and forty-five hundred slaves, had equal 



' .^f ilio iiitiiiorial iHTst'iiUd to tlio Ast^embly, 



The Free Negro. 247 

weight with Baltimore— with one hundred and forty thousand 
whites, twenty-five thousand free blacks, and three thousand 
slaves. In the popuhu' House, the delegation from Bahiuiore, 
at its largest, was less than a seventh of the members. Thus 
it might happen that large majorities in the Assembly 
would be a gross misrepresentation of the people of the Suite.' 



In 1842 the House passed a bill to require blacks to take 
out new freedom papers, at charges proportioned to their age, 
but the Senate rejected it.- At the session following, the ques- 
tion was asain raised, without result, of taxint>; all able free 
blacks, for the support of the State; and a bill to require 
them to be registered was considered, and the enacting clause 
finally struck out. The same questions were brought up the 
next year again ; and a committee bill for the registry of free 
blacks passed the House but was rejected by the Senate.' But 
of greater moment seems the report of a special committee of 
the House appointed to consider evidently a proposition tliat 
the free blacks of Charles county be removed — that measures 
be taken to cause all the free blacks in Maryland to emigrate. 
At the next session the delegates from Charles county, to 
whom the matter had been referred, presented a lengthy re- 
port. The presence of the free blacks, they said, is deemed 
an evil by almost everyone, and with continued increase in 
their numbers, the whites must eventually amalgamate with 
them, or leave the State, or be reduced to slavery. All plans 
for removing the blacks with their own consent were destined 
perhaps to prove illusory, as the negro iiad shown an invinci- 
ble indisposition to go. The testimony of the agents ul' the 



1 Constitutions of 1776, 1851, 1864; amendment of 1S37. 
* House Journal, 1842, 144, 550. 

3 House Journal, 1844, 42, 60, &c. Tiiis or another similar l.ill was up 
affain in the House the next year. 



248 The Negro in Maryland. 

(nloiiization Society, indeed, showed that force alone conld 
remove them. And that the Assembly could force them to 
go, followe<l from the fact that they were legal and not consti- 
tutional citizens, and that their status could be changed or 
alwlished at the pleasure of the legislators. In accordance 
with this report, a bill was introduced in the House to remove 
the free blacks of Charles county, but action on it was post- 
poned, and we find no further mention of it — except that the 
House received a memorial against it, as well as against a bill 
for taxing free blacks, from nine hundred citizens of Baltimore.^ 
This bill for special taxation — if we may accept the report of 
it in tlie Easton Gazette — required all free blacks between the 
ag&s of twenty-one and fifty, who were able and capable of 
self-sui)j)ort, to be registered yearly during the months of 
April and May, in the county offices, and to pay one dollar 
each therefor to the State. Failing so to do, they were liable 
to 1x3 fined between five and ten dollars, and in default of this, 
to be hired out. The report says that this bill was passed by 
the House by a very close vote : it was surely rej-^cted by the 
Senate.* A bill for the better regulation of free blacks in St. 
Mary's county ])assed the House also, and was also rejected in 
the Senate. A bill to repeal the act of '31 for colonization was 
opj)osed by the committee, and was referred to the next Assem- 
bly. We find a bill to forbid the courts to give permits to 
frt-eilnieu to remain in the State, laid on the table and ordered 
to Ix; printed, at the session of 1849. 

In the constitutional convention of 1850-51, a committee 
of seven was early appointed, to consider all matters relating 
to the free blacks, and to report a plan " looking to the rid- 
ilance of tiiis State " of the free blacks, and to their coloniza- 



'Kt-IM.rtK of committees, 1844, 1845; House Journal, 1845, 58, 153, 380. 

•hjutton (iazette, Feb. 8tli, 1845. HoweviT legitimate an object of taxa- 
lifiii fn-e ni'Kr<)V« nmy be, adds the Gazette, we are inclined to look ou this 
bill UH bard and iinroasonablu : such provisions are liable, to say the least, 
t«i tin- nimt j:roHs un<l tyrannical abuses — so palpable as to strike the atten- 

tlllll Ul ulll'f. 



The Free Negro. 249 

tion in Africa.^ Four months later, an elaborate report was 
made. The increase in the free blacks of the State from 1790 
to 1850 had been over a thousand a year; from 1830 to 
1840, when the plan of colonization was actively taken up, 
the average increase had been the same; from 1840 to 1850, 
even more. If that rate continued, the free blacks would soon 
exceed the whites in number, in eleven counties. Only one 
thousand and eleven had been colonized in Africa since 1831, 
at an expense of two hundred and ninety-eight thousand dol- 
lars, nearly two-thirds of which came from the State. Consid- 
ering this and the vice and ignorance of the blacks, the com- 
mittee recommended, to be inserted in the new Constitution, 
that the Assembly be empowered to pass laws for the govern- 
ment of the free blacks and for their removal, and be ordered 
to provide immediately for their registration ; that no black 
should be capable of acquiring real estate in the future, nor of 
holding by lease for terms longer than one year ; and that no 
free black should enter Maryland to stay, and no slave should 
be manumitted except on conditions of leaving within thirty 
days. When the consideration of this report was asked, some 
five weeks later, by the chairman of the committee, a motion 
to indefinitely postpone it was carried by forty -two to thirty- 
eight. A second attempt to bring it up later, in the same 
sitting, was defeated by forty-four to thirty-three.' This was 
in the convention. But we find a bill for the government, 



1 By motion of Mr. Jacobs of Worcester, who was made chairman, and 
reported the work of the committee. Two petitions were receivctl from 
Frederick county for stringent legislation. 

«0f the forty-four opposed to the report were— the entire delegations 
from Baltimore and Washington counties; \ of the delegates from CW-il 
and Harford ; | of those from Queen Anne's and Talbot counties and Haiti- 
more citv. Of the thirty-tiiree in favor— all from St. Mary's and Prinw 
George's; i from Montgomery; f from Worcester; A from Calvert, I'liarles 
and Kent;'| from Somerset. The votes of those present from the other 
counties were divided— Frederick, 4 against and 1 for the report; Dor- 
chester, 3 against and 2 for; Allegany and Carroll, 2 against and 1 for; 
Anne Arundel and Caroline, 1 against and 1 for. 



250 The Negro in 3Iaryland. 

regulation and disposition of the free blacks, before the As- 
seml)ly of 1852. It gave more strict provisions for binding 
them out, and forbade manumission except on condition of 
emigration to Africa. It was put oflf to the next session. 
Tlien it was rejected by vote of thirty-one to twenty-two. 
Ou reconsideration, it was rejected by thirty-two to eighteen. 
Brought up again, it was rejected by thirty-three to twenty- 
one. And it was then withdrawn from the files of the House. 
The Assembly was not discouraged by this gloomy report 
of the work of colonization, for the State appropriation of ten 
thousand dollars a year, which expired in 1851, was continued 
for six years more, to carry on the "policy of the State." ^ 
Again in 1852, as in 1847, some one got leave to bring in a l)ill 
for taxing the free blacks — this time, for the benefit of coloniza- 
tion — but we find no mention of it further. The free blacks 
themselves were by no means unanimous in advising coloniza- 
tion. A meeting of some of the most intelligent blacks of 
Baltimore was held in May, 1852, to consider colonization and 
j)lans for the elevation of their people ; and a call was issued 
for a convention of delegates from the free blacks of the 
State.' According to the newspaper reports, the chief object 
of the preliminary meeting was to rouse greater zeal for emi- 
gration, the separation of whites and blacks being deemed 
d(>siral)le, and to provide pleasant accommodations for those 
al)out to sail, during the necessary tarry in Baltimore. In 



' l«r)2, 202. 

• li.'ihiriiore paper-;, M:iy 2.")tli, July 20111, Sec, 1852. A gentleman promi- 
ni'iil in lilt' work of tiie Maryland Colonization Society, wrote in an open 
lelttT, in iK'jl, "The hlaek man's heart — capable of the highest improve- 
ment, III* Liberia lias already proved, clings to the natale solum with vast 
tenuriiy, more stj even than the white man feels, and the black man cannot, 
therefore, be expected to remove from familiar faces and familiar places, 
wiilioiit n dinging liold, yielding only to the sternest circumstances." 
(Itultiniore American, September lllh, 18)1.) There had been a raoveuient 
ill favor of eoloniuition in 1841 (A'lVes, LX, 227). The Baltimore Sun for 
May ITlli, 1H')1, speaks of similar ellbrts among the blacks in Baltimore 
niid in Cambridge. 



The Free Negro. 251 

accordance with the address that was issued, tlie convention 
met in July, in Baltimore. The ol)jeet, as given, was to con- 
sider the present condition of the free blacks, and to adopt 
such measures as might tend to its amelioration. Several 
delegations at once asked leave to withdraw, as they wore 
convinced that any action by the convention, instead of im- 
proving the condition of their people, would produce an agita- 
tion among them, to their injury. This was greeted with cries 
of approval from all parts of the house, and although the 
statement was plainly made that the convention had no direct 
connection with the work of colonization, but was for the 
improvement of the social and intellectual condition of the 
blacks, the sitting ended without accomplishing anytliing. 
In a melee without the hall, where a crowd of blacks ha«l 
gathered, one boy was cut in the face with a tumbler, and a 
dozen men were arrested. And as the reporter of the aboli- 
tion paper at the slaveholders' convention had barely escaped 
a laying on of hands, so here, a minister of one of the black 
consreffations of Baltimore, a zealous advocate of coloniza- 
tion, had to be escorted home by the police. The next day 
— a strong police force being present — officers were chosen, 
and the resolution adopted, that all men are equal, and tiiat 
free inquiry should be given to all matters affecting their wel- 
fare; and that while the zeal of those who had labored for 
twenty years to put the whites and free blacks of tiie country 
on a social and political equality, had been fully appreciated, 
the fact was evident that the condition of the free bhicks as a 
class was less desirable than before. At this sitting and tlic 
next, there was a lively discussion as to the advantages of 
emigration to Liberia. Earnest and able speeches were tiiadc. 
showing considerable knowledge of Liberia and liayti. but 
some felt that to recommend emigration woidd only l)e to 
destroy anv good influences of the conventi..n among the 
blacks. It was resolved, finally, that the "disparity of tl.ongbt, 
feeling and intellectual advancement" which was mvu to exist 
between the white and black races, showed that mutual preju- 



2 52 The Negro in Maryland. 

dices could never be sufficiently overcome for the two races to 
dwell together in harmony and equal privileges, and that a 
separation from the whites — many of whom the blacks could 
not but love and admire— was therefore devoutly to be 
desired, as tending to the advantage of both whites and blacks. 
To these resolutions there was but one opposing voice, and the 
convention adjourned after having named a permanent com- 
mittee and recommended the formation of local societies, to 
estal)lish schools for black children, and to find out all useful 
information about colonization/ The Governor's message to 
the Assembly of 1858 spoke of the favorite policy of coloniza- 
tion suo-trostino- the use of further inducements to make the 
free blacks of the counties leave, and emancipation conditioned 
on immediate removal — before those who were freed might 
become contaminated by their new associations — or on pay- 
ment of a sum sufficient to ensure the colonization of others. 
At that session, the renewed appropriation having expired, 
there was voted for the work under the managers, five thou- 
sand a year for four years, and in addition, seventy dollars 
for every black above ten years and thirty-five for younger 
ones, safely started for Africa — the entire expenditure not to 
exceed the previous appropriations often thousand a year. 

In September, 1858, a goodly number of the slaveholders of 
Worcester county met together to recommend the calling of a 
general convention of the Eastern Shore, in the following 



' Al ii iiiitional convention of colored }>eople in Pliiladelpliia, in October, 
1S5."), II letter was read from a black of Haltiinore eulogizing Liberia. Sev- 
eral nieiiil)ers tliereiipun spoke against colonization, determined to demand 
llu'ir rights in the conntry where they were born ; and a motion to burn the 
letter was curried by a large majority. So reported the Baltimore Sun of 
OcIdIkt Uttth. The author of this letter appears to have been the temporary 
cliuiruian of the convention in 15altiniore in '52. The Baltimore conven- 
tion mljiHirned to the following year, but the papers have no mention of 
niiy further meetings. See the reports of the National Colored Conven- 
tiouH, ill Philadelphia in 1S;U and 1832, opposing emigration to Liberia 
and llayti, and asking the .\inerican Col. Soc. to desist from its "unhal- 
lowe«l iK-TM^-cuiioii." Williams' Colored Race, 11,(31. 



The Free Negro. 253 

November, and to pass resolutions for the strict enforcement 
of the hiws and police regulations concerning slaves, especially 
to prevent runaways and the spread of abolition pajx-rs. This 
was to be helped by empowering postmasters in all the 
slaveholding States — for the resolutions looked to action 
by Congress as well as by the State Legislature — to open 
all letters and documents addressed to slaves and free 
blacks.^ In response to this call, delegates from Caroline, 
Dorchester, Somerset, Talbot and Worcester met at Cam- 
bridge. A committee of ten reported resolutions the follow- 
ing clay, which were adopted. It was evident, they said, to 
the people of Maryland that it was an impossibility under 
the existing laws, to control and regulate the black popu- 
lation in a proper manner. Attention was called to the 
great number of free negroes; to their habits of idleness 
and dissipation ; to the heavy cost to the public of criminal 
prosecutions against them ; to their well known tampering 
with slaves and aid in inducing slaves to abscond ; and to 
their evil example and influence on the slaves, whom they 
made dissatisfied with bondage and comparatively worthless 
to the owners. Maryland is, and should be, a slaveholding 
state, true to the interest of herself and her Southern sisters. 
A system of legislation was needed to protect slaveholders and 
reo-ulate all negroes — for their own interests as well as for the 
whites. Free blacks and slaves could not exist side by side, 
and the 'Wicious habits" of the free blacks, "their refusal to 
labor, their incapacity for self-government," leave the ahcrna- 
tive of making them go from the State or go int.* slavery. 
Public feeling was ready for the question, and delegati's of all 
the people should be called together to consider these propo- 
sitions and make recommendations to the Legislature. A 



1 Baltimore Sun, Sept., 21st. 1S58. iVi/es' Register n,enti..n8 local meotings 
of slaveholders in Anne Arundel, Charles and St. Mar/s count u-., m Ks45 
(Vol. LXIX, 52). There was a meeting in Queen Anne's (Jounly, also, in 
February, 1845. 



2o4 The Negro in Maryland, 

committee of seventeen was named to draft an address to be 
printeil, before the convention, in newspapers throughout the 
State.' 

In tile following June, 1859, the general slaveholders' con- 
vention met in Baltimore. The plan had been to have each 
county and Baltimore city represented by as many delegates as 
each sent to the Assembly. And the meeting indeed seems to 
have been a large one. Allegany appears to have been the 
oidy county not represented. A meeting of citizens of Balti- 
more interested in the movement had been called shortly be- 
fore, but so few responded that no organization was made. 
However, a delegation from Baltimore was nominated by the 
convention, the chairman stating — in response to the question 
of a member from Calvert, as to whom the city representatives 
represented — that on failure to choose members, after proper 
notice, the people would be voiced by those who Avere pres- 
ent. A large committee of twenty-one, from the various 
counties, was chosen to report action. But the committee 
Wits divided in opinion.^ Two questions, in general, are be- 
fore us, reported the majority, — first, the proposed expulsion 
of the free blacks from the State, and secondly, whatever leg- 
islatiim may be necessary to give vitality to the law of 1831, 
iii:ikiiig nianumission conditional on emigration. It is highly 
int'xpcdicnt to try to remove all the free blacks. They are 
in<l('('(l an evil in a slave-holding community, but the major- 
ity ol' tlicm ai-c iKit idle, unproductive and vicious. Their re- 
moval woidd he a greater evil than all the harm ever suffered. 
In Baltiiuoiv they numl)er twenty-five tiiousand, mostly ser- 
vants and lahoi'crs. Much of our soil could not be tilled 
without tliem. Then such an act of force would violate pub- 

' Ihiltiiiiore San, Nov. Gtli, 1858. Tliis committee of seventeen inehides 
nuiiH-M froiii (Veil and Kent, so those eoiinties were probably re})rcsented also. 
Tlif I'lithton Star mivs of tlie convention: A number of resolutions were 
a>l<i|itc«l which ainonnt to notliinj;. 

• Tin- <li:iirin:m lia<l said, on undertaking iiis duties : On the slavery ques- 
tion fVrrv man has his own tiicories. 



The Free Negro. 255 

lie sentiment, whieh is generally just and kindly— It w,,iild 
not be tolerated by the people of the State. Nor should 
rights of freedom already vested be taken awav. On the 
other hand, the policy outlined in the act of 1831 was wise 
and proper; but that law — becoming inoperative, and few 
blacks being willing to leave — had been almost forgotten 
except by members of the Bar.^ But certain evils arising 
from the increase of free blacks have been almost universallv 
admitted, and are more evident than in 1831. Slaves run 
away mainly through their influence, or are encouraged by 
them to insubordination, and the thriftless of them set evil 
examples to slave and free alike. They should be in well 
regulated subordination. It is also contrary to tiie policy of 
the State, and productive of evil, to allow them to acquire 
real estate.^ The provision of '31 against the return of free 
blacks to Maryland is believed to be inoperative and wholly 
inefficient, also. Therefore, there should be no removal of the 
blacks then free, or to be born free ; but they should be well 
controlled so as to be "orderly, industrious and productive"; 
and emancipation should be prohibited entirely, or be allowed 
only on condition of removal of the freedmen. The policy of 
'31 should be renewed with vigor. The minority report, on 
the contrary, advised putting an end to " free-negroism " at an 
early day, and "on the most advantageous terms to our white 
population." The free blacks should be advised to leave the 
State, if they would remain free; and those who wished 
should be allowed to become slaves to the citizens. Failing so 
to leave or become slaves, they and their posterity should be 
sold for life, and the prices be put so low, and payments so 



^Tlie committee ascribed the desuetude into which this act had fallen— 
to use their own language— to the imperfections of its details. 

* It not infrequently happens, reads the report, that free blacks form tliick 
settlements on little parcels of ground, cultivate less than can support 
them, labor but little for those who would be glad to hire them on liberal 
terms— the conclusion being that they eke out their living by unlawful 
means. 



256 The Xegro in Maryland. 

easily arranged, that citizens of small means might get them. 
Apprentices and slaves for terms of years were to be included 
at the end (tf their terms; but in all cases, a prudent discrim- 
ination should be used in favor of those who were aged 
or meritorious. There should be efficient police regulations 
fur the blacks, throughout the State. The point of this report 
was that the labor of free blacks was needed, provided it did 
nut come in competition with the whites; it was not just "to 
take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs."^ The gen- 
tleman who presented the minority report said he did not 
wish to drive away the free blacks, for their labor was 
wanted. A member from Calvert said that the people of his 
county wished them to work, but they would not. A member 
from Frederick said that further legislation was necessary for 
a State half slave and half free, that a slave who would 
bring fourteen hundred dollars at New Orleans could not be 
kept with any security in the counties bordering on Pennsyl- 
vania. A member from Howard said that his county was 
represented simply because it was opposed to holding such 
conventions; there had been slaveholders' conventions, but 
no good results ! Finally, after several substitutes for these 
reportij liad been set aside, the convention adopted the resolu- 
tions of the majority of the committee, appointed several gen- 
tli-men to petition the Assembly, and adjourned sine die.^ 

'J'he message of the Governor to the next Assembly, in 
.lamiary lS<iO, spoke — as had that of 1858 — of the need in 
many of the counties of further legislation on the free blacks. 
In lialtimore and the larger towns and in the Northern coun- 
ties, there was little complaint against the free blacks; nor 
indeetl was the evil of their presence felt "as it is in the lower 
comities, on Ik ah shores, where the community is taxed to 
hiipp'M-t tliiir idleness and vagrancy, and is subject to their 



' StH! minority report, presented by Mr. Jacobs of Worcester. 
• linlliinore Sun, Juno Stii, 1859. The nmuber of delegates was over 
ninety. 



The F)'ee Negro. 257 

pilfering and the ill effects of their evil example on the ser- 
vile population." And the suggestion was made that every 
idle black be bound out for wages, under just condition.-, and 
with freedom of choice of master and of change. Tlie House 
committee on Colored Population presented a lengthy re))ort.' 
There was, it said, an alarming state of excitement on the 
subject of the colored population. In the rural ])arts of the 
State, there was an evident feeling of distrust to the free 
blacks ; the increased number of house-burnings and poison- 
onings and other manifestations of insubordination had given 
alarm for the security of life and property. These feelings 
were clearly announced in petitions presented the Assembly, 
as in that of the slaveholders' convention. As to the plans 
to be pursued to remedy the evils, experience had shown that 
the free blacks would not voluntarily emigrate, and a great 
mistake had been made in allowing manumitted blacks to 
remain. The act of 1831 had been a failure.^ Nothing short 
of an ultimate wiping out of the free blacks would meet the 
emergencies besetting the peculiar condition of Maryland. 
We think it would be "unjust, and perhaps cruel," continue<l 
the committee, to force them to leave the State; but they 
should be held in perfect subordination to the citizens, and 
made to work under their control. If it be admitted that the 
negroes are once absolutely free, any laws that may be passetl, 
affecting them and not all freemen, will be regardal by them 
as oppressive, and will also secure for them a large amount of 
sympathy from the whites. By manumission the negro does 
not get the rights of a citizen, but " merely ceases to belong to 
one man, and really becomes the property of the whole State." 



1 Composed of Messrs. Jacobs, of Worcester ; Burgess, of Charles; Dennis, 
of Somerset; Bryan, of Prince George's; Gordon, of Allegany; llolhn.l, 
of Dorchester; Claggett, of Frederick. 

«This act, said the committee, lias been in operation for twenty -sevt-n 
years, at a expense fron. the State of $280,000 and from all sounv-. of sonu- 
half million, but the free black population had grown from .VJ.OUO in \s.\\ 
to some 90,000 or more. Of blacks born free, not over :iOO ha.l on.igrule.l. 

17 



258 The Negro in Marylana. 

The free black does not like to work out on the farm, where 
lal)( .r is needed, nor does he look to the future. In short, " as an 
interior class of our population, we owe to them the enactment 
of such laws as will restrain them from self-destruction, and 
make them subordinate and useful to our citizen population 
anil the industrial interests of our State." The recommenda- 
tions of the committee, to this end, were the repeal of all taxa- 
tion for colonization; the entire prohibition of emancipation;^ 
the grant to free blacks under fifty-five years of the privilege 
of choosing masters and going into slavery at any time ; pro- 
vision for the hiring out of the blacks for terms of ten years — 
the children to be born in future to be the property of the 
masters of the mothers ; and a number of strict police regu- 
lations, including the right of postmasters to withiiold from 
negroes any mail addressed to them." So far the committee 
could agree, but some of them had wished to put the free 
blacks back into slavery — complete and at once. Several bills 
were introduced in the House. The Judiciary committee re- 
portetl favorably this stringent legislation, and such further 
regulations as the j)unishment of persons for teaching negroes, 
and od' slaves for being away from home without passes, and 
the prohibition of meetings.^ Other plans were brought for- 
ward, — the prohibition of any gifts or conveyances to free 
bhu-ks of either real estate or slaves, with the sale of such then 
belli by blacks on their death ; and the use of negro testimony. 



' Evi-n those blacks wlio had been freed on condition of leaving but liad 
ri-niaiiicHl, uruler cover of a judi;inent of tiic rourt of Appeals, were to be 
retnrne<i to their old masters. 

'Tliiu wiLs, in the opinion uf the coniniittee, the best disposition to make 
of the free blackH, "for their own good, for the welfare of the industrial 
iiitorfj<t« of the State, for the i)eaee, good order and security of society, and 
in furlheriincc of the ends uf a sound and real humanity." " The restora- 
tion of them back into a state of slavery does not meet the approbation 
of a niiijority uf tiie committee, though some of us do consider it the most 
humane di«|M»H!il to make of them." 

''I'liiii couunillet', too, was not of a mimi in all things, but a bill intro- 
ducctl liy tin- niiiioritv w;us afterwards withdrawn. 



The Free Negro. 259 

when accompanied by proof of circumstances tending to .-on- 
firm it, on the trial of whites for aiding slaves to abscond. 

It is not without thought of the whims and pei-sistency 
of individual legislators that we draw from Assembly jour- 
nals these frequent inquiries that were asked for," these 
repeated bills that wei-e introduced, these occasional reports 
that were submitted, all in vain, with the aim of further and 
more stringent legislation against the blacks; but these, how- 
ever worthless they may or may not have been as exponents 
of any public sentiment, show that the subject was kept fresh 
in the mind of successive Assemblies. It had been stated in 
the slaveholders' convention that the people were readv for 
action, and since that convention, had occurred the attack 
of John Brown on Harper's Ferry. If there ever was a 
time ^vhen there was a call for the enforcement of the police 
regulations against the blacks of Maryland, it was in the 
autumn of 1859. The Assembly, meeting in the January 
following, surely appeared ready to take some steps, perhaps 
long steps. There were some warnings, however, of popular 
disapproval. As early as October, a meeting was held at 
the court house of Baltimore county, small in number but 
of prominent citizens, and an address to the people of tiie 
county was ordered. When a petition to the A&sembiv (in- 
the hiring out of free blacks was circulated in St. Mary's, the 
Leonardtown Beacon stated that the citizens in general were 
opposed to any forcible measures. Over one thousand of the 
prominent citizens of Baltimore signed a jictition in remon- 
strance to harsh measures. Some of the local j)apers, Siuthfi n 
in sympathy, deprecated the advice of the slaveholdei*s' i-on- 
vention.^ 



^ Also, a petition in remonstrance was received from some eighty citizvnB 
of Harford county. The Cumberland Telegraph stated that n niimbor of 
industrious blacks, members of a beneficial society there, had withdrawn 
their funds from the bank and distributed it, on learning; of the proposition 
in the Assembly to dispossess negroes of their projiorty. Sie Itiiltiiiiore 
Sun, Oct. 16th, 1859, and January 14th, Feb. 17th, 2(»th, ISiiO. 



260 The Negro in Maryland. 

The Assembly finally passed four measures. The State 
hoard of managers for colonization was done away, with only 
two t)pposing votes in the House; and no general appropri- 
ation was made, but fixed sums as before were to be paid for 
every black sent oif by the State Society, uj) to a total of five 
thoustuid dollars a year. Secondly, manumission was abso- 
lutely forbidden thereafter.^ The vote on this stood thirty- 
eight to fourteen in the House, and thirteen to six in the Sen- 
ate. Thirdly, any free black over eighteen years of age was 
allowed to renounce freedom and become a slave for life to the 
master of his own selection ; if a female, any children that she 
might have under five years would become slaves also, while 
older children would be bound out by the courts. Applica- 
tion would have to be made by the black to the circuit court 
I'or the county in which he, or she, had lived for three years 
preceding, and would be granted by the court only after full 
examination, in open sitting, to be sure that no force, fraud or 
unilue ])ei'suasion had been used.^ The fourth measure was 
the residuum of the various plans for hiring out the idle free 
blacks of the counties. As it passed the Senate, the bill ap- 
plie<l only to Baltimore, Calvert, Howard, Kent and St. 
Mary's counties. The House added Anne Arundel, Caroline, 
( 'harlcs, Dorchester, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, Somerset, 
'l\ili)ot and Worcester, but, at the request of the Senate, 
struck out Anne Arundel, Caroline and Dorchester. A board 
of commissioners, of three sober and discreet men, was to be 
a|)j)ointetl in each district by the commissioners of these 
oKinties, to be the commission "for the better control and 
management" of the free blacks. These were to summon be- 



'ThiM did not effect slaves for terms of years, to be free under deeds or 
willn aln-udy made or probated. 

MhtK), 'iKa, :V12. House Journal, Feb. 16th, Marcli 9tli. It will be 
IKTtinent to add that an e.xt-mption bill, to secure persons against the 
ncizurt- of furniture and other projierty to the amount of $300, was amended 
by n voiu of thirty-live to thirteen in the House, so as to exclude blacks 
from it* Ix-nefits. House Journal, Feb. IGth. 



The Free Negro. 261 

fore them on every first day of December, every free black of 
their district who did not have, in his or her own right one 
hundred and fifty dollars of assessed property, or who did not 
actually reside with parents having, in addition, for every son 
or daughter, fifty dollars worth of assessed proi)erty. The 
blacks, on appearance, were to be duly warned, and then at the 
expiration of a month, the commissioners were to sell at auction 
as slaves for a year, all those who had not hired themselves 
out to labor for a year to industrious and respectable citizens. 
The hirers had to give bonds, to secure wages, satisfictory to 
the commissioners, and liable to suit ; and if a black trie<'l to 
abscond, he could be sold as a slave for life — on proof of his 
offence by some disinterested and reliable person, under oath 
— by the commissioners, for the benefit of the primary school 
fund. The wages agreed in the bonds were to be collectcHl by 
the commissioners and paid the blacks in presence of a magis- 
trate, after deducting expenses and the necessary contributions 
to a fund for the support of all those free blacks who coidd 
not be hired from age or disability. And all free black 
children aged from four to twelve were to be bound out to 
citizens, males to the age of twenty-one and females to 
thirty. The masters might be chosen by the mothers, if these 
desired, but they had to give bond, in all cases, for the good 
treatment and care of their apprentices. The last and most 
important provision of the bill Avas that the act was to be null 
and void unless accepted by a majority of the voters of the 
counties mentioned, at the presidential election of the follow- 
ing autumn. The Assembly seemed ready to leave the dtn-i- 
sion with the people. The bill passed the Senate without 
opposition and the House by forty-one to three. Several (»f 
the counties to which the provisions of the act were oflcivd 
had large numbers of slaves, as Calvert, Charles, St. 
Mary's and Prince George's; others, as Baltimore county, 
Kent, Worcester and Somerset, had fewer slaves and many 
more free blacks. At the exciting election of Novemlwjr, 
1860, the act was rejected, taking the counties together, by a 



262 



The Negro in Maryland. 



vote of over three to one. And many of those who voted 
for president did not vote upon it/ 



We close with the adjournment of the Assembly of 1860. 
In the course of the Civil War, which soon broke out, Mary- 
land passed practically under military law. Slavery in 
Maryland, as in West Virginia and some parts of Louisiana 
and \'iruinia, was not included in Mr. Lincoln's Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation. It was abolished by the adoption of the 
State Constitution of 1864. This Constitution, however — also 
declaring paramount allegiance to the United States, and pro- 
vitling that the State should not compensate former slave 
owners — c-annot be taken as an expression of the people of 
Marvland. It was rejected by a majority of nearly two thou- 
sand of the forty-seven thousand and odd citizens who voted 
at the polls, and was ratified by a majority in all of three 
hniidred and seventy-five votes, counting those cast in the 
Union camps by soldiers from Maryland, under a provision 



' Tlu- vciif on ilie act (known to some as the Jacobs' bill) according to re- 
turns given in Halliniore papers, stood — 



Hiiltiiuure Co. 

Calvert 

(Iiurles 

Howard 

Kent 



For. 


Against. 


681 


5,354 


242 


504 


328 


471 


o5 


1,397 


74 


1,502 



Prince George's , 
Queen Anne's . . 

Somerset 

St. Mary's 

Talbot 

Worcester 



For. 



282 
125 
1,486 
435 
121 
842 



Against. 

1,200 
1,467 
804 
816 
1,142 
1,217 



In TjiU)ot, over 500 voters threw blanks on the free negro act; in Prince 
« if<irj{t"'i*, Hoiue 450; in Somerset, some 670, &c. 

The clerk of the court of Somerset county, the only county in which the 
ml wiw not rejivtcd, writes that its provisions were never applied there. 

The voti- of IJH- Stale was nearly eijually divided between Hell and 
Kvi-rell ittid Hrc-ckeiibridgo and Lane, in favor of the latter. Douglass 
|kj11i-<1 only nomc 5,500 votes and Lincoln sonic 2,000. 



Conclusion. 263 

of the Constitution itself. The Assembly of 1861-2, severe in 
its blame of " the seditious and unlawful acts " of the relx-llious 
States, yet spoke with apprehension of "so unwise and mis- 
chievous" a policy as any interference by the general 
government in the institution of slavery in the South ; and 
the Constitution of 1867 declared in vain that as slavery in 
Maryland had been abolished " under the policy and authority 
of the United States," compensation was therefore due fn.m 
the government to the former master.' 



One word — and an important word — in closing. W\' have 
gleaned from various sources and marshallal together, act on 
act, judgment on judgment, report on report, many of them 
facts of little importance — except as concerning the negroes 
in Maryland. And we may well consider, that the average 
citizen of Maryland probably gave as little heed to those 
of them of his day, as we to-day follow the proceedings 
of our legislatures and courts or actually feel the working of 
law about us, except in so far as our own immediate, tangible 
interests are concerned. There was a bright and touching side 
to slavery which led many to think no ill of it, as there was a 
dark side which branded it. But all will agree to-day, prob- 
ably, in thankfulness that it has gone. 

Note. — We have not attempted to describe " the old plantation" of the 
South, for the task has been well done by some who knew it. For an intor- 
esting account of life on a large and well ordered plantation, see, for 
instance, "Memorials of a Southern Planter," by Susan Dabney ShkhIos 



^The number of those who had voted in the presiiiential eleition of 1860 
had been over 90,000. The vote on the Constitution of 1SG4 wjw— home 
vote, 27,541 for, and 29,536 against, and 61 blanks; soldiers' vote, in ciim|w, 
2,633 for, and 263 against. That on the Constitution of 1«G7— 27,162 for, 
and 23,036 against. See Charter and Constitutions of tlie U. S. 1S6I-2, 
Resolutions 2, 3, 9, 13, 15. 



264 The Negro in Maryland, 

(Baltimore, 1888, Cushings & Bailey). We must remember that such books 
deal with the bright side of slavery. On the other hand, the injustice done 
by the abolition literature, so called, is that it may be taken as pictures of 
Southern life, instead of pictures — drawn in exciting days, and often by 
those who were foreign to their subject — of that side of slavery which was 
happily the least known. 

Tlie student of the institution of slavery cannot refer too often to Kurd's 
Law of Freedom and Bondage, and Moore's Slavery in Massachusetts. 
Much of value will be found, also, in Cobb's Inquiry into tlie Law of Negro 
Slavery (1858, Phil, and Savannah). 



POPULATION OF MARYLAND. 



1830. 





Whites. ^^^^^ 


Slaves. 


The Whole State 


291,108 52,938 


102,994 







1860. 



CotTNTIES. 



Allegany 

Anne Arundel 

Baltimore County... 
City of Baltimore... 

Calvert 

Caroline 

Carroll 

Cecil 

Charles 

Dorchester 

Frederick 

Harford 

Howard 

Kent 

Montgomery 

Prince George's 

Queen Anne's 

St. Mary's 

Somerset • 

Talbot 

Washington 

Worcester ■ 



Whites. 



27,215 

11,704 

46,722 

184,520 

3,997 

7,604 

22,525 

19,994 

5,796 

11,654 

38,391 

17,971 

9,081 

7,347 

11,349 

9,650 

8,415 

6,798 

15,332 

8,106 

28,305 

13,442 



Free 
Blacks. 



467 
4,864 
4,231 
25,680 
1,841 
2,786 
1,225 
2,918 
1,068 
4,684 
4,957 
3,644 
1,395 
3,411 
1,552 
1.198 
3,372 
1,866 
4,571 
2,964 
1,677 
3,571 



The Whole State 1515,918 ; 83,942 



Slaves. 



666 
7,332 
3,182 
2,218 
4,609 
739 
783 
950 
9,653 
4,123 
3,243 
1,800 
2,862 
2,509 
5,421 
12,479 
^,174 
6,549 
5,089 
3,725 
1,435 
3,648 



87,189 



18 



265 



INDEX. 



Al><)liti..ii, oflbrts for, .52, &c., 237 
Maryland society for, 52, &c., 57 
g(K"iety in Baltimore for, 152, 184 
of slavory in Maryland, 262. 

Aljolitioii matter, spread of forbidden, 
224. 

Annapolis, records of Mayor's court 
of, 13»). 

Anne Arundel County Court, study 
of old records of, 135. 

Apprentices, colored children bound 
i»ut as, 108, 219; efforts to force 
certain free blacks to become, 
200. 

Baltimore, unfair representation of, 

in as.>;fmbly, 246. 
Barliadoi's, notice of slave code of, 

147. 
Brown, John, patrols called out after 

raid of, 97, 111. 

Carroll, Charles, efforts of, for aboli- 
tion, 53, 54. 

Charles county, effort to remove free 
blacks from, 247. 

Coloiii/.ation, the state policy, 66, 165, 
\c., 2.'17, iVc, 252, 260; decisions 
of c-ourt nf aj)pi'als unfavorable to, 
KiU; Maryland society, 71, 165, 
235, 23S; American society, 235; 
wnvenlion of blacks on, 250. 

Convfp.roii to Christianity does not 
Kive freedom, 2>i, ttc. 

Cruelty to servants and slaves, efforts 
to prevent, 140, «S:c. ; to slaves, 
141, \c. 

IX-liiwnrv, escape of slaves to, 85, 

Ac. 
IV»j<*, numlivr of hdil bv free blacks 

limited, 216. 
iJulii* on nluvu« iniiKirtod, 42, Ac. 

266 



Education of blacks, not provided 
for, 197. 

Entertainment, of servants and slaves, 
restrictions on, 100; by blacks in 
Baltimore, must be licensed, 204. 

Evidence, law of, 190, &c. See Tes- 
timony. 

Exportation of blacks, efforts to pre- 
vent, 57, <&c. 

False imprisonment, suits by manu- 
mitted slaves for, unsuccessful, 162. 

Felons, importation of, 118; testi- 
mony of, 121 ; numbers of, in Bal- 
timore county, 1752, 175. 

Freedom, petitions for, 36, 148, &c. ; 
removal oftrial on petitionsfor, 153. 

Free blacks, numbers of, 175, 249; 
entrance of, forbidden, 176, &c., 
178, 181, &c. ; entrance of, allowed 
by special acts, 178, 180 ; liable to 
detention as runaway slaves, 183 ; 
right of suffrage once exercL'sed by, 
186; legalstatusof, 187, 194; pro- 
perty held by, 188, &c. ; occupa- 
tions of, 206; restrictions on trading 
and dealings by, 208, 211, &c. 
take benefit of insolvency laws, 211 
idle and indigent, bound out, 218 
efforts to force, to hire out, 222 
law to prevent, from quitting ser- 
vice, 223 ; punishments of, for un- 
lawful meetings, 199 ; for belong- 
ing to secret societies, 200; for 
dealing in stolen goods, 212, for 
handling abolition matter, 225; 
laws on crimes and punishments 
touching, 226 ; sale of, as punish- 
ment, 227, &c., 232, &c. ; not 

. deemed a desirable part of popula- 
tion, 234, &c., 237, 240, 242, 253; 
efforts for increased restrictions on, 
240-260. 



Index. 



267 



French West Indies, importation of 
slaves from, 48 ; insurrection in, 
96. 

Friends, society of, efforts for aboli- 
tion, 52, &c. ; against exportation 
of blacks, 57, &c., 60; for unre- 
stricted manumission, 151, &c. ; 
against kidnapping, 184. 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, and the Genius 
of Universal Emancipation, 224. 

Guns and ammunition held by blacks, 
restrictions on, 216. 

Indentured, idle free blacks, &c., see 

Free Blacks. 
Indians, the Spaniards and the, 

5, &c., 9 ; the colonists and the, 

11, etc. ; enslavement of, prisoners, 

12, 19; mention of slaves, 13, 20; 
trials of white offenders against, 
15 ; restrictions on, 17 ; conversion 
of, 18 ; trials and punishments of, 
116. 

Insurrections, rumors of, of papists, 

Indians and negroes, 91, &c., 97 ; 

in West Indies, 96 ; local, 96 ; 

rumors of, of slaves, 97, &c., 202. 

See Southampton. 
Introduction of slaves to Marvland, 

26. 

Jacob's Bill, against free blacks, 260. 
Jail treatment of blacks, 81. 

Kidnapping, 34, &c., 61, 148, &c. 

Liberia, 165 ; convictions for larceny 

in, 234 ; removal of blacks to, 239, 

241, 249. 
Liquor, sale of to servants and slaves, 

restrictions on, 102, 213, to slaves 

and free blacks, 213, &c. 

Manumission, 55, 60, 148, &c. ; not 
valid in prejudice of creditors, 
168, &c. ; allowed bv special acts, 
167 ; conditional, 169, Ac, 237 ; 
by presumption, 172 ; by devise of 
property, 174. 

Manumitted slaves, powers of, to 
secure freedom, 161 ; status of, 162. 
See Slaves for terms of years. 

Marriages between blacks and whites 
forbidden, 32, 195. 



Meetings of blacks, restrictions on, 
93, &c., 100, &c., 11)9. &•., 205. 

Military service, exemption of blacks 
from, 110 ; enlistment of free blacks 
in, in Revolution, 196. 

New Jersey, escape of slaves to, 85, 

&c. 
New York, escape of slaves to, 88. 

Occupations of free blacks, 206. 

Pardoning power, exercise of by Gov- 
ernor, illustrated from old council 

records, 130, &c. 
Passes, use of, for blacks, 89. 
Patrols, 97, &c., 110. 
Pennsvlvania, escape of slaves to, 85, 

_cS:c.,"88, 235. 
Pinkney, Wm., eflbrts for abolition, 

53, 152; against exportation of 

blacks, 57. 
Population of Marvland, in 1860, 

265. See also 38," 175, 249. 
Prisoners, ransom of Christian, 3 ; 

enslavement of heathen, 4. 
Propertv, of slaves, 104; of free 

black8j^l88. 
Protection societies, for insurance of 

slave propertyT^l. 
Punishments, laws on crimes and, 

see Servants, Free Blacks and 

Slaves. 

Ransom of prisoners, old custom of, 

3, itc. 
Religious bodies of blacks, 199, 

205. 
Runaways, white servant**, 72, Ac, 

78; slaves, 72-91; Indians, 74; 

black servants, for terms of vears, 

78. 

Servants, black, see Slaves for terms 
of years. Wiiite servants, 20, Ac, 
72; restrictions on entertainnuMil 
of, or dealings with, 100, 102; 
punishments of, 114, 119. 

Slave ccnle, on crimes and pun- 
ishinent^;, studv of growth of, 
112-126. 

Slave trade, by Euroi)eans, 4, <>, Ac, 
9 ; African, 38, Ac, 40 ; growth of 
opposition to, 43, 46; prohibition 
of, 45. 



f^S 



268 



Index. 



Slavery, in antiquitj, 2; early 
treatises on war, &c., touching, 7, 
&f. ; basis of, in Maryland, 26-37 ; 
legalized, 37 ; abolished by State 
constitution of 1864, 262. 

Slaves, introduction of into Mary- 
land, 26; in England, 27; con- 
version does not alter status of, 
28, &.C. ; increase in numbers of, 
3S, «*to. ; restrictions put on intro- 
duction of, 45, Ac, 64, (Sic, 66, &c., 
lessened, 71 ; eftbrts to prevent ex- 
portation of, 67, &.C. ; outlawry of, 
for certain oflences, 76, 81 ; pun- 
ishment of, for absconding, 76, 78, 
Ac, SI, 91, for absence from home, 
100, Ac, for sale of li(iuors, &c., 
103 ; laws on crimes and punish- 
ments touching slaves, 117-130, 
138 ; refttrictions on transporta- 
tion of, by common carriers, 82, 
&c ; efforts to restrict, from act- 
ing as free, 104, &c., 174; restric- 
tions on dealing or trading with, 
102, Ac ; religious instruction of 
slaves, 108, Ac. ; care of old or dis- 
abled, required, 107, 149 ; sales of, 
Ac, 144 ; issue of mortgaged, 145 ; 
owned by free blacks, 190. 

Slaves, for terms of years, restric- 
tions on exportation of, 60, Ac ; 
restriitions on sale of, 61, Ac; 
runaways, 78 ; exportation and 
sjile of, as punishment, 124; 
status of ih-sue of, 154. 

Slave-holders' conventions, at An- 
napolis, 242, of Eastern Shore, 
252, at Baltimore, 254. 



Society of Friends, see Friends. 

Societies, secret, of blacks, forbidden, 
200 ; beneficial, allowed in Balti- 
more, 203. 

Southampton insurrection, 65, 66, 96, 
99, 165, 177, 199, 236. 

Suffrage, right of, once open to free 
blacks, 186. 

Taxables, slaves, 146. 

Testimony, of blacks illegal against 
whites, 119; of convicts, made 
valid against convicts, 121 ; of 
slaves made valid against slaves, 
121; of white servants, 140; 
growth of law touching evidence, 
190, Ac. 

Tobacco, growth of, as affecting 
slavery, 39. 

Trades and shipping, as affecting 
slavery, 39. 

Turner, Nat., see Southampton in- 
surrection. 

Vagrant free blacks, sales of, 218, 
Ac, 221, Ac; committed to Bal- 
timore almshouse, 221 ; children 

. of, bound out, 198, 219. 

Villeinage in Europe, 2. 

Vindex letters in Baltimore Ameri- 
can, against the slaveholders' con- 
vention, 245. 

War, laws of, as affecting slavery, 
2, 4, 7, Ac. 

Whites and blacks, status of issue of, 
32, Ac. ; marriage between, for- 
bidden, 32, 195. 



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